More than a century and a half since Charles Darwin published “On the Origin of Species,” his ideas are still relevant to the scientific community.
The University of Wyoming’s Biodiversity Institute celebrated the famous scientist’s 206th birthday with an event called Darwin Day that featured a presentation about the reception of Darwin’s ideas in his time and a film about humanity’s ancient fish ancestors.
The Big Idea
Brian Barber, a member of the Biodiversity Institute since 2013, helped to organize the event.
“It’s a celebration of Charles Darwin’s ideas,” Barber said. “He changed the way we think about the world.”
Darwin Day started with a reception in the Berry Center during which attendees could talk to researchers about their current projects. Topics ranged from the evolution of horses to hybrid birds found in the narrow area between two species’ habitats.
Attendees were also welcome to tour the UW Museum of Vertebrates, where multiple preserved specimens of the same species offered visual examples of genetic variation and natural selection.
“Darwin and the Unity of Life and Humankind”
Jim Ahern, professor and chair of the anthropology department, gave a presentation about natural selection and common descent, two givens in modern science, which Darwin pioneered, in his books “On The Origin of Species” and “The Descent of Man.”
Ahern discussed how in the years between Darwin’s books and for a long time after, Darwin’s ideas of evolution were twisted to “scientifically prove” the superiority of one race over another.
“It was wrong to associate racism with Darwin, but not to associate evolutionism with scientific racism,” he said. “It’s fair that we get criticized for that stuff, but it’s not fair that Darwin gets criticized for that stuff because Darwin was making an argument in 1871 that seems like it took until the 1970’s for most of academia to realize.”
Ahern also spoke on Darwin’s idea that all life is interconnected, sharing a singular family tree.
“But he also took it all the way down to the level of our very own species to demonstrate that we’re all in it together,” Ahern said. “We’re not different species, one that can subjugate another. We really are all the same, or at least similar enough.”
“Your Inner Fish”
Following the presentation and ending the night was the showing of the first third of a PBS documentary called “Your Inner Fish,” which is based on a book of the same name by Neil Shubin.
The film explored the evolutionary precursors to modern human anatomy, looking as far back as humanity’s aquatic ancestors.
