Two centuries on, a salute to Charles Darwin: Hero for our age

The Daily Mail ^ | Decemberf 27, 2008 | Desmond Morris

[Inappropriate Laughter]

As the world faces an uncertain future, Britain's leading anthropologist toasts Darwin, born 200 years ago, for identifying adaptability as man's greatest asset

Charles Darwin: His observations undermined the traditionally held view of 'stability of species'

There is a strange object sitting on my desk as I write. It is a shiny sphere of fossilised, primeval slime. Known technically as stromatolites, this blue-green slime was the original ooze from which all life on this planet evolved.

This painfully slow process began about 3,000 million years ago and has led, ultimately, to us, the extraordinary human species.

Whenever my gaze happens to fall upon my lump of fossilised slime I experience a strange sensation, a deep respect, for I am looking at my most ancient ancestor.

Yours, too, unless you still believe in the tale of Adam and Eve and a talking serpent in the Garden of Eden.

In a few weeks, on February 12 to be exact, the scientific world will be celebrating the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Darwin, the man whose theory of the gradual evolution of living things has changed the way in which most of us see the world in which we live.

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

the whole idea of gene therapy is based on genetics...which Darwin contributed to its beginning of understanding

Well now you're crediting Darwin with what Mendel discovered. Darwin's own theories of heredity were completely false. They did inspire Lysenko, though.

[Judges Gone Wild]

Trilobite trails were found in the Atlantic years ago. Coelacanths are regularly fished out of the Indian Ocean off Madagascar.

[reasonisfaith]

A very important way to determine historical truth is in examining chronology. The gnostic works were written at least a century after the Gospels of the New Testament, which immediately detract from their credibility.

Further, the geographical errors and other inconsistencies found in the gnostics made it simple for the church at the time, accurately so, to dismiss them.

[reasonisfaith]

If I may, I would like to emphasize my point that the whole idea of gene therapy and genetics, and the fact that gene therapy works, demonstrates nothing with regard to Darwinian evolution theory.

That is, the reproducible mechanisms of gene therapy are separate and independent of the hypothetical mechanisms of random mutation, natural selection and speciation.

[Recovering Ex-hippie]

thank you for your reasoned and thoughtful reply. I will review it.