As all (or many, or some, or none) of you may know, today is the 200th birthday of one of our most famous presidents, Abraham Lincoln. However, Lincoln is not the only famous person born today. It is also the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin. Yes, as amazing as it seems, these two men were born on the exact same day in the exact same year: February 12, 1809. So why is today Darwin Day, then, you ask, and not Lincoln Day? Well, for one, Lincoln already has a day, President's Day, set aside for honoring him. And, for another, this year marks not only the 200th anniversary of his birth, but also the 150th anniversary of his greatest work, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, more generally known as The Origin of Species.
The celebrations of Darwin's life and legacy that are happening all around the world today and over the course of this year (for more information, you can go to the official website) fill me with hope. Over the past few years, I have watched with horror and disgust as creationists and religious people of all stripes have tried to undermine the teaching of the facts of evolution to students in the public schools. As a student of science myself, and as someone who recognizes that society will get nowhere if it does not embrace the realities of the world and work to understand them instead of trying to bury them because they do not conform to ancient dogmas, I mourn for every child who grows up without an honest understanding of evolution. To see educators and scientists and laypeople all coming together to celebrate science and reason for once, and to do it around the figure of Charles Darwin, whose theories still remain controversial despite being absolutely true, is very inspiring.
And that is the most important thing to note about Darwin's Theory of Evolution. Unlike almost every other well-known scientist whose discoveries opened up a whole new field of study, Darwin's observations and conclusions about evolution and natural selection remain as true to reality today as they were in 1859. They have been enhanced, and modified slightly by the discovery of new evidence, specifically by the understanding of DNA as the source of genetic distinction and the mapping of genomes to determine the similarities and differences between all living organisms, but the discovery that all living organisms on this planet have evolved from other organisms, and continue to evolve through the method of natural selection, is a fact of the universe.
And what an amazing fact it is! To think that even human beings have changed over time, and are still changing, that what we are now is not all that our species will ever be, is mind-boggling. Add that to the idea that our intelligence and self-awareness, the things that we have always used to set ourselves apart from the animals, may not always be unique to us, and to recognize traits of intelligence and self-awareness in other animals is incredibly humbling. We owe the ability to see our world and ourselves as more connected and more ever-changing than we could have imagined to Charles Darwin, and if that is not something worth celebrating, then I don't know what is.
Happy Darwin Day!
