Lessons from Loss

One of my abiding interests is Darwin's theory of evolution, so the title "Lost Charles Darwin fossils rediscovered in cabinet" on the BBC News this morning caught my eye.

According to "Lost Charles Darwin fossils rediscovered in cabinet", no one even knew that the "hundreds of beautiful glass slides", prepared from fossils collected by Charles Darwin and other scientists, existed (2012, ¶ 6). The fossils were shipped to England in the 1830s to be prepared as slides to be examined under a microscope. However, after preparation, they were not recorded and were forgotten until their "remarkable discovery" by Dr Howard Falcon-Lang.

I don't think the slides are particularly important for science, but more so as history. In fact, their unimportance for science demonstrates one of the great strengths of science. It shows yet again why the modern Darwinian theory of evolution, which explains how every single living thing on this planet is related because it all came from a single ancestor, is greatly superior to every alternative explanation of the origin of the vast variety of life on Earth today, from carrots, to humans, to cats, to bacteria, to poison ivy: we all related, and the modern scientific theory that began with Darwin's publication of the The Origin Of Species in 1859 explains how it is so.

Intriguingly, Darwin was not the first to have this idea. I remember my amazement when at university I read a very similar idea in the long philosophical poem De Rerum Natura by the Roman poet Lucretius, in which he imagines mindless particles first bumping into each other, then sticking together in ever more complex arrangements until we get human beings. And then again, there are similar ideas in the 18th century philosopher David Hume. But Darwin is special because he did what no one else had done before: he turned a great idea into a  great idea with a mass of solid, factual support. Darwin made the idea solid science. And since Darwin's day, the amount of evidence supporting the theory of evolution has grown enormously.

It amazes me that so many, especially in the US, hate and refuse to believe that the theory if true - they tend to be Christians and other religious types completely blinded by their strong faith in non-existent supernatural beings.  (Sorry, but I can't think of a single good reason to believe that any of the thousands of gods, demons, ghosts, spirits, pixies, elves, santas, fairies and other supernatural beings that humans have believed in might actually be real). Of course, all they need do is present a single piece of evidence that conflicts with Darwin's theory, and that will be the end of it. But after more than 150 years of trying, no one has ever presented any solid evidence, or even a strong reason, against the Darwinian theory of evolution. And as is usual with scientific theories, this one has itself evolved as more research has suggested refinements and new developments.

Even without the fossils that Darwin collected, his ideas lasted because, provided the relevant conditions are met (you might, for example, need a billion dollar Large Hadron Collider to do the experiment or make the observation), every scientific theory can be tested anywhere at any time - experiments and facts have to be verifiable and repeatable, and they can always be proven false. The loss of Darwin's fossils for 165 years was unfortunate, but it was not a problem for science: this theory has not yet been proved wrong. Their recovery is lucky for history, especially the history of science and culture.

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References

Lost Charles Darwin fossils rediscovered in cabinet. (2012, January 16). BBC News. Retrieved January 18, 2012 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16578330