Happy Birthday Charles Darwin

Today, February 12th 2009 is the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin, our beloved forefather of the evolutionary theory. He laid down the foundation for much research after him and is seen as the key figure in the development of the evolutionary theory.

Charles Darwin was born in 1809 and died in 1882. He was an English naturalist who derived the idea of natural selection. Natural selection is the process by which organisms with favorable heritable traits reproduce in order to pass on the favorable trait. A favorable trait is any trait that will allow an organism to have much greater chances to survive. Some would say that those with favorable traits have the greatest advantages in the populations to survive, survive in a way that it is a competition to keep from dying and not being able to pass on your genetic material.

From the theory of Natural Selection we get another idea, that of the survival of the fittest. The strongest organism, or the one with the most desirable traits will be the one to survive rather than the one without. It can also be expressed as the organism who has the most over time adapted to it's environment. This doesn't necessarily mean that the organsim less adapted to it's environment will not be able to survive, for if you think about life in a broader spectrum, it is our goal as a member of our species to find a mate and care on the genetic code. The organisms while being able to carry on the genetic code must also be able to produce a large enough amount of offspring to keep the species continuing.

Another key thing to the theory of evolution is the adaptability of an organism to its environment. Everyone knows the story of Darwin's finches. While he was on his expedition he noticed that on every of the Galapagos Islands there was a species of Finch. While the finches appeared somewhat alike, he noticed that the beak shape varied greatly. Some had long skinny beaks, other had wide, and broad beaks. He assumed that the finches had at one point shared a common ancestor and then as the Galapagos islands broke apart, the environments changed and the finches were forced to adapted to survive. He assumed that the primary reasoning for the change in beak structure was linked to the availability of food on the islands. In the circumstance of the finch with the tough, broad and wide beak, and the fact that it ate mainly nuts, it was established that the finch most likely adapted so that it would have an easier time opening the nuts. While the finch with the narrow and long beak, ingested pollen.

We have these great ideals that have added to the debate on the way man began thanks to the forefather of evolution, Charles Darwin.