It’s Darwin Day!Yes, today, the 12th of February is a day of celebration for Charles Robert

It’s Darwin Day! Yes, today, the 12th of February is a day of celebration for Charles Robert Darwin. Darwin was born on the 12th of February 1809. Initially, Darwin could be described as a geologist; when he was younger he had a substantial rock collection and was knowledgeable in mineralogy and crystallography. His more famous work however, involved zoology. Darwin is famous for establishing that all species of life have derived from common ancestors. He developed the scientific theory of evolution, resulting from what he called “natural selection” – or maybe more publicly known as “survival of the fittest”, in which the struggle for existence was similar to the artificial selection brought on by selective breeding. The drawing in the background of this image is an original sketch of an early phylogenetic tree- showing Darwin’s early theory, which was found in a notebook called “red transmutation notebook B”in 1837. Of course, Darwin later made his theory public with the publication of “The Origin of Species; in which the Tree of Life is included. The tips of the branches in this sketch are representative of species that are still alive today, but the tree also shows species that have existed in the past but are now extinct. Darwin explained this by stating “'From the first growth of the tree, many a limb and branch has decayed and dropped off; and these fallen branches of various sizes may represent those whole orders, families, and genera which have now no living representatives, and which are known to us only in a fossil state.” The lines, or the branches, of the tree are representative of relationships between species. As an example, a current Tree of Life would show a link between Dinosaurs and Birds; it is believed that Birds have evolved from Dinosaurs. The Tree is arranged so that closely related species are found close together. Of course, phylogenetic analysis has come a long way since 1837, but Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection is widely accepted and explains the distant origins and fantastic variety of life on Earth. Perhaps my favourite part of this sketch is the words “I think”, Darwin was unafraid to think outside the box in a time when the theory of evolution would be beyond the socially accepted norm. These two words encapsulate the sentiment that it is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. -Jean For loads more information, take a look over here: http://darwinday.org/ -- source link

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