Darwin was right!

Jan 18 01:38 UTC 2006

I had the day off yesterday (mlk day), so I opted to spend the day in 
higher pursuits.  I went uptown to the American Museum of Natural 
History, on Central Park West.  The AMNH is an amazing place, one of 
the largest and best museums there is anywhere.  When I go, I often 
like to spend time up on the fourth floor where resides the world's 
largest collection of dinosaur fossils.  I could spend hours just 
staring at the T-Rex and the Stegosaurus and the giant reptile birds.

But not on this day.  Today my purpose was to visit the museum's 
special exhit on Charles Darwin, the most in-depth presentation of his 
life, work and materials ever mounted.  The Darwin exhibit is really  
something, it chronicles his life and how he came to his theories.  
Darwin was actually planning to join the ministry, but fate intervened 
and he got the chance to go on a five year around the world journey as 
the ship's scientist on the HMS Beagle.  His job was in part to collect 
specimens of animals/life forms and send them back to England for 
cataloging.  The ship gets to the Galapagos Islands, and Darwin is 
startled to find that the birds he finds on each island are the same 
species but each slightly different.  The birds on one island, with one 
environment and weather conditions, adapted differently than birds on a 
different island.  In different parts of the world on his long sea 
journey, he encountered species that were the same, and yet were 
different. He discovered fossils that indicated that new species now 
living there had replaced old species.  The only logical explanation 
was that these species were evolved from the earlier species, had each 
adapted over time to their particular needs and circumstances.  He 
found an earlier species of snake fossils that had tiny legs, 
indicating snakes had evolved to the point where they no longer needed 
and therefore no longer grew tiny legs.  His work indicated snakes had 
evolved from a species of lizards.  What Darwin realized he was seeing 
was a process of change that was constant.  Again and again, he found 
countless examples of species which had gone extinct, only to be 
replaced by newer species.  

Darwin's exhaustive study of various plants and animal species around 
the world led him to conclude that plants and animals are not fixed and 
unchanging. Instead, all species are related through common ancestry, 
and they all change over time.  Which could only mean that the world 
and all its species could not have all been created at one time. He 
brought home a bat skeleton, and noted that the bones in the bat's wing 
looked very much like the bones in a human hand.  When he looked at 
chimpanzees and apes, he saw the same thing he saw in his studies of 
mostly extinct species.  He brought back fossils showing that horses 
had adapted from earlier species of similar animals that were no bigger 
than dogs.  Basically the fossils in every case showed they were 
earlier versions of something, showing how nature adapted and refined 
those earlier versions, until the latest and most complete model 
arrived.  Apes were earlier models.  Homo sapiens are later models.  

Darwin came back from his journey convinced that all living things are 
connected, and that human beings are not alien to this world, but are 
rather completely part of a natural evolutionary process.  The exhibit 
displays Darwin's extensive insect and fossil collections, as well as  
his original writings, and it even re-creates his study, where he 
wrote "Origin of the Species"  Darwin's findings were so radical that 
he kept them secret for 21 years after his five year sea journey.  His 
ideas were blasphemous and in the conservative religious England of 
that era, he feared for the safety of himself and his family if his 
writings got out prematurely.  It wasn't until he was much older, and 
had taken ill and knew he could not responsibly take his secret to his 
grave, that Darwin finally started publishing his work.

The exhibit has testimonials by numerous scientists and others.  The 
curator of the AMNH explains in a video that the entire museum, and the 
other great natural history museums, are set up based on Darwin's idea, 
that we are all connected with a common heritage.  Other scientists 
point out that Darwin's theories have stood the test of time, they have 
not been disproved, despite many attempts.  Darwin's ideas have not 
been proven false, they have over and over again been proven correct.  

Sadly, Darwin had to live with the consequences of his ideas.  Darwin's 
daughter died while still a child, and his wife brought herself to 
believe their daughter was in heaven.  Darwin could not ever believe 
that himself though, as much as he wanted to, because his own theories 
showed that the world was not created, the world evolved, and is still 
evolving.

Anyway, the Darwin exhibit "Charles Darwin: For 21 years he kept his 
theory secret" is at the American Museum of Natural History through May 
29th, and it is quite the experience.  I recommend that any of you who 
can or will get to NYC at any time this spring make a special attempt 
to see this.   

response 2 of 62:

Jan 18 08:20 UTC 2006

Darwin was right, huh?  Does that mean you'll soon be a victim of
Natural Selection? :p

response 4 of 62:

Jan 18 12:02 UTC 2006

Do they have the fossilized remains of the Democratic Party on exhibit 
there?

response 6 of 62:

Jan 18 15:23 UTC 2006

re #2 evolution happens slowly, over millions of years.  are we still
evolving?  logic would say that we are.  the human body is more advanced, more
adapted than it was, say 200 years ago.  People are bigger, stronger, with
more advanced brains now.

response 8 of 62:

Jan 18 17:24 UTC 2006

Richard

How is "natural selection" making humans bigger, stronger, and smarter 
while science and technology are now enabling more people who are 
smaller, weaker, and less smart survive to reproduce?

response 10 of 62:

Jan 18 18:21 UTC 2006

re #7 I said logic tells us evolution is still ongoing.  We see change all
around us, and if we are connected to the world, as cells to a body, and the
world is changing constantly, then logically we must be changing too.  The
process takes so many millions of years that we mostly just don't notice. 
Our appendixes were once useful body parts in a lower evolutionary stage. 
We no longer need our appendixes, however the fact that we still have them
is proof we evolved.  We adapted to our environment, we invented clothes, we
don't need body hair much anymore.  We therefore adapted to where we no longer
grow as much body hair in our current versions as we did as lower life forms.

response 12 of 62:

Jan 18 18:53 UTC 2006

Just because you can function without it, doesn't mean you don't need
it.

response 14 of 62:

Jan 18 19:31 UTC 2006

Re #12: Um, ok, so what does "you don't need it" mean then?

response 16 of 62:

Jan 18 20:16 UTC 2006

Would any reasonable scientist say that "evolution" can be observed in 
real time (with the possible exception of fast-breeding insects)?

Richard is confusing mutation with evolution.