The Genius of Charles Darwin

By Rosie Millard
The Sunday Times, August 3, 2008

Edited by Andy Ross

Professor Richard Dawkins, who holds the chair for the public understanding of science at Oxford, was last week nominated as one of the country's Groovy Old Men. At 67, Dawkins is the best-known atheist in the country. He is about to chew up religion again in a television series about his hero, Charles Darwin.

Dawkins believes that many science teachers are selling our children short by kowtowing to political correctness. At the moment, he points out, Darwinian evolution is taught in British schools at key stages 3 and 4, but under the national curriculum, alternative theories such as "intelligent design" (part of the creationist credo) "could be discussed in schools ... in the context of being one of a range of views on evolution," according to a government education minister.

"It's fine to teach children about scientific controversies," Dawkins says. "What is not fine is to say, 'There are these two theories. One is called evolution, the other is called Genesis.' If you are going to say that, then you should talk about the Nigerian tribe who believe the world was created from the excrement of ants."

Cowardice is at the root of the problem, he feels. When it comes to presenting the truth of science against the "mythology" of religion, science teachers duck the issue for fear of reprimand. And not only from evangelical Christians. In his view, devout Muslims are a large part of the problem.

"Islam is importing creationism into this country," he says. "Most devout Muslims are creationists — so when you go to schools, there are a large number of children of Islamic parents who trot out what they have been taught."

In his TV series, Dawkins faces a class of 15-year-olds at Park High secondary school in London. A few of the pupils readily tell him they don't believe in evolution because it runs counter to their religious beliefs. It's only after he bundles them into a coach and shows them fossils at the seaside that one or two admit there might be something in this evolution gig after all.

"I was shocked by how some put up barriers to understanding," says Dawkins. "I showed them the evidence, and they just said, 'This is what it says in my holy book.' And so I asked, 'If your holy book says one thing, but the evidence says something else, you then go with your holy book?' And they said, 'Yes.' And I said, 'Why?' And they said, 'It's the way we've been brought up'."

Even worse, from his point of view, their science teachers are extremely unwilling to oppose anything that smacks of a faith-held belief. And the same applies to their head teachers and the government.

"Teachers are bending over backwards to 'respect' home prejudices that children have been brought up with," he says. "The government could do more, but it doesn't want to because it is fanatical about multi-culturalism and the need to 'respect' the different 'traditions' from which these children come."

Dawkins shakes his head with dismay. His large, light Oxford house is filled with books, of which his most precious is a first edition of On the Origin of Species, an imprint that ran to only 1,250 copies and sold out immediately. The book has never been out of print since.

The Genius of Charles Darwin begins on Channel 4, August 4, 8 pm.
 

Charles Darwin

By Robin McKie
The Observer, June 22, 2008

Edited by Andy Ross

In early 1858, on Ternate in Malaysia, a young specimen collector was struck by malaria. Alfred Russel Wallace began thinking about disease and famine, about how they kept human populations in check, and about recent discoveries indicating that the earth's age was vast. Fittest variations will survive longest and will eventually evolve into new species, he realised.

Wallace wrote up his ideas and sent them to Charles Darwin, already a naturalist of some reputation. His paper arrived on 18 June, 1858 at Darwin's estate in Downe, in Kent. Darwin, in his own words, was 'smashed'. For two decades he had been working on the same idea. What followed has become the stuff of scientific legend.

To preserve Darwin's claim on natural selection, Hooker and Lyell arranged for a joint reading of both men's works at the Linnean Society in Burlington House, Piccadilly. On 1 July, society members were summoned to hear the news of a theory that has gone on to cause more offence and trouble to our species than any other in our history.

The fuse had been lit. 'Wallace's letter gave Darwin a good kick up the backside,' says the geneticist Steve Jones. 'He had prevaricated for 20 years and would have done so for another 20 if he hadn't realised someone else was on the trail.' The summer of 1858 changed everything for Darwin. He sat down and wrote up the research he had been carrying out for the past 20 years.

The end result was On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, whose 150th anniversary will be celebrated next year along with the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth. Remarkably, it is the only major scientific treatise to have been written as a piece of popular writing.

Richard Dawkins: 'When you read The Origin of Species, you get a real feeling that Darwin was very keen to be understood. He did not want merely to persuade fellow scientists, he wanted to show to the public the truth of his ideas. He took great pains with it, which is why it is such a convincing book.'

Darwin remains venerated to this day. By contrast Wallace has been forgotten. He was happy to let Darwin and his friends promote natural selection. Self-educated and from a humble background, Wallace had none of the privileges accorded to university-educated Darwin, whose father was a prosperous doctor.

David Attenborough: 'Wallace was an admirable man and was almost saintly in his treatment of others. However, as a scientist, he was no match for Darwin. Wallace came up with the idea of natural selection in a couple of weeks in a malarial fever. Darwin not only worked out the theory, he amassed swathes of information to support it.'

Jim Endersby: 'Natural selection was a brilliant idea but it was the weight of evidence, provided by Darwin, that made it credible. That is why we remember Darwin as its principal author.'

On his round-the-world voyage on the Beagle, between 1831 and 1836, Darwin had filled countless notebooks with observations. And then, in his vast garden at Downe, he had crossbred orchids. He collected masses of data about plant and animal breeding to support his arguments. Wallace could provide nothing like this.

Jim Endersby: 'Wallace came to believe evolution was sometimes guided by a higher power. He thought natural selection could not account for the nature of the human mind and claimed humanity was affected by forces that took it outside the animal kingdom.'

According to Darwin, there are no get-out clauses for humans. Darwin had been shattered by the death from tuberculosis of his 10-year-old daughter, Annie, in 1851. Darwin recalled: 'We have lost the joy of the household and the solace of our old age.' Thus Darwin's eyes had been opened to the unforgiving processes that drive evolution.

This pitiless vision is the version of natural selection which has since been supported by a century and a half of observation and which is now accepted by virtually every scientist on earth.

A brief history of evolution

1800: Jean-Baptiste Lamarck argued that characteristics acquired by an animal during its life were passed on to future generations. He was wrong.

1830: Charles Lyell argued that the geological history of the Earth was one of gradual changes that took place over extremely long periods. Darwin was deeply influenced.

1858: The ideas of Wallace and Darwin were read at the Linnean Society in London.

1865: Gregor Mendel's studies of plants led him to develop the laws of genetics. The basic unit of this process is the gene, which is the focus of the forces of natural selection.

1953: Francis Crick and James Watson unravel the double helix structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), the material from which the genes of all living creatures are constructed.
 

AR  Darwin — one of the great men of all time. Up there with Moses, Plato, Newton and Einstein.