Charles Darwin

Last night, I was watching a lecture about Charles Darwin, the man of passion. "There is nothing like geology; the pleasure of the first days partridge [a bird] shooting or first days hunting cannot be compared to finding a fine group of fossil bones, which tell their story of former times with almost a living tongue", he wrote to his sister in his 5 year voyage (1831--1836) across the world. He entered the ship as a geologist but became renowned as a zoologist. He painstakingly recorded every observation and made a theory about why there are so many varieties of species. He proposed a theory called "Natural selection", that means the nature selects only some species for the survival; these species must be suitable for life in their environment. In "On the origin of species", he specifically emphasizes on breeding or mating as the natural and vital element of survival; I can imagine it might felt a bit disgusting to people at his time. Interestingly, he argues that how minute tiny changes can cause big changes in evolution, and that "human" is one of those big changes.

While "On the origin of species" mostly records Darwin's observations of different species and his theory about evolution, he specifically talks about his theory of human evolution in "The descent of man". He argues that man is not the goal of the evolution but merely a product. His main points in "The descent of man" are: (1) though human has differently evolved from other species, he has the ape ancestor; (2) intelligence is not the driving force of evolution, it is a byproduct; (3) morality is not the guide for evolution, it just gives an adaptive advantage to a group and helps the group survive; and more interestingly, (4) sexual selection is a struggle between males who compete for possessing females to have offspring, that is, the female animal chooses the male that is most appealing to the female. Ha?! It sounds so unfamiliar and contradictory to living-as-a-human-being experience! In the human world, females are the ones who should make an effort to attract males, and after attracting them, they have to make even a greater effort to keep them! Apparently, non-human females are blessed to have attractive males, just think of beautiful tales of male peacocks (Taavoos in Persian)!

The other interesting lesson I learned is about Darwin's character. He was a quiet scientist, concerned about his observations and not interested in attending scientific conferences (difficult to believe!). On the contrary, the other scientist who had similar theory about species variations, "Alfred Wallace", indeed Darwin's friend, was a social person and well-known in his field. Though he was certainly a good thinker, he was not a voyager! Although the idea was the same, he did not have enough observations as evidence of his theory, while Darwin did. So, Darwin, the passionate voyager, became renowned, not Wallace.

I have started again thinking "what question do I have in my life?". Darwin had "How could it be possible that there are so many species in the world?". Am I really concerned about "how does language emerge in the brain?", what I did in my PhD, or "how do neurons in retina encode information about the outside world?", what I hopefully pursue in my postdoc in Edinburgh (pronounce it as "Edinbura" not "Edinburg"!). By the way, Charles Darwin was Scottish! And more interestingly, he studied in the University of Edinburgh! I'd rather think of it as a good sign ;)