There shall be Woodpeckers where not a Tree Grows

During post-Labor Day travels in 2017 I picked up a copy of Charles Darwin’s _On the Origin of Species_ [London 1859].  This classic work on Earth and life sciences surpasses the impact of greats such as Galileo, Newton, Einstein, Planck, and Mendel in how we see ourselves in relationship to life on our planet.  Darwin’s manuscript is written for a general audience, and his words read as a contemporary documentary (I use the voice of the BBC’s David Attenborough in my head as I read the book traveling from one airport to the next).  Here are a few examples of the books present nature:

p70: The action of climate seems at first sight to be quite independent of the struggle for existence; but in so far as climate chiefly acts in reducing food, it brings on the most severe struggle between the individuals, whether of the same or of distinct species, which subsist on the same kind of food.

p75: I have very little doubt, that if the whole genus of humble-bees became extinct or very rare in England, the heartsease and the red clover would become very rare, or wholly disappear.  The number of humble-bees in any district depends in a great degree on the number of field-mice, which destroy their combs and nests; and Mr. H. Newman, who has long attended to the habits of humble-bee, believes that ‘more than two-thirds of them are thus destroyed all over England’. Now the number of mice is largely dependent, as every one knows, on the number of cats; and Mr. Newman says, ‘Near villages and small towns I have found the nests of humble-bees more numerous than elsewhere, which I attribute to the number of cats that destroy the mice.’ Hence it is quite credible that the presence of a feline animal in large numbers in a district might determine, through the intervention first of mice and then the bees, the frequency of certain flowers in that district!

p94: With animals and plants a cross between different varieties, or between individuals of the same variety but of another strain, gives vigour and fertility to the offspring; and on the other hand, that close interbreeding diminishes vigour and fertility; that these facts alone incline me to believe that it is a general law of nature (utterly ignorant though we be of the meaning of the law) that no organic being self-fertilises itself for an eternity of generations; but that a cross with another individual is occasionally – perhaps at very long intervals – indispensable.

p108: The more diversified in habits and structure the descendants of our carnivorous animal became, the more places they would be enabled to occupy . . . The truth of the principle that the greatest amount of life can be supported by great diversification of structure . . .

p129 [discussing the 200 species of beetles in Madeira which  cannot fly]: the wingless condition of so many Madeira beetles is mainly due to the action of natural selection, but combined probably with disuse.  For during thousands of successive generations each individual beetle which flew least, either from its wings having been ever so little less perfectly developed or from indolent habit, will have had the best chance of surviving from not being blown out to sea; and, on the other hand, those beetles which most readily took to flight will often have been blown to sea and thus have been destroyed.

What I find amazing is that Darwin was able to grasp the concepts of biological evolution without knowing of DNA or genetics; also at his time most of the transitional fossils we have today were unknown.  Darwin devotes a full chapter to difficulties of his theory (showing honesty).  Today the difficulties he had in his theory have been answered, and biological evolution is known as a fact in the scientific community (even though almost 50% of Americans do not understand it 150 years later).

Just as modern cosmology and physics explain the birth, and expansion of the universe; biological evolution so eloquently answers the question of ‘how’ all plant and animal life of on Earth came to be. To which, as I was reading, I thought about my family members and friends who ask ‘why’ questions on life to the heavens-above.  I have read many posts asking “why did this tragedy happen.” or “we will know someday, in the next life.”  I say to them, if you remove God, and focus on nature, all questions are possible to answer in this life. The essence of the world becomes sensible when you do not introduce mystical gods.  Lions, bananas, and people, all share a common ancestor; and sometimes things go wrong with each.  Questions of disease, sickness, suffering, even yesterdays shooting in Las Vegas can be answered when we ask ‘how,' without invoking a ‘why’to the a supernatural being.  Every god in every culture evolved from the human mind, just as every human mind, like all life, evolved from a single cell form.

On the plane ride today I also read the transcripts of Trump’s speech to the nation on the Las Vegas tragedy; there were many references to God.  And I thought, how will we solve the most important issues facing us if we keep lying to ourselves and living in a make-believe world?  When will America be honest on the nature of life?  In the words of Carl Sagan “In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.“

Back to the topic; _On the Origin of Species_ is a remarkable read today, just as when it was first published in 1859.  Even if one doesn't appreciate evolution; if you enjoy nature shows, you will enjoy this classic science book.