• Question: How do you like Darwins theory of evolution?

    Asked by chrisb97 to Tomasz, Matt, Dave, Aoife, Anzy on 15 Nov 2013.
    • Photo: David Christensen

      David Christensen answered on 15 Nov 2013:

      I like it very much chrisb97!

      Darwin has able to see how competition between animals is able to force a species to adapt and change over time. He could see how this forces a kind of “arms race” where predators get better at attacking and chasing prey while prey get better at avoiding and running away from predators. He could also see how his meant that variability within a species was important to allow the species to survive through changes in their environment. And this all allowed speciation – the process where a species divides in two and we get two different species descending from 1 original species.

      The fact that we have been able to see how this evolution works within modern genetics is pretty awesome too and shows what a good theory it was at the time.

    • Photo: Matthew Tomlinson

      Matthew Tomlinson answered on 15 Nov 2013:

      I think it’s amazing, and that the fact that Darwin (along with Alfred Russel Wallace) was able to come up with such a theory without any of the modern tools we have is astounding. Darwin’s insight that small changes which help an animal become more successful in a certain environment get passed on through the generations was a work of genius, especially since he did not know about genetics (which Gregor Mendel was discovering at the same time).

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