On Nov. 24, 2009, Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” will be 150 years old, but the National Science Foundation is already commemorating the event with an online report released today on the author’s 200th birthday.
Once you understand evolution, and natural selection you will truly understand the sheer majesty of the universe. Seriously, spend the time to really understand this topic and you will gain so much more awe and appreciation for the world. No simple creation myth holds a candle to the insanely cool revelations that will wash over you once you understand how something so simple can lead to something so complex and wonderful.
The report, “Evolution of Evolution: 150 Years of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species,” asks a basic question: How did “Origin” influence science and society during the last 150 years? An international team of evolution experts take up the question and their answers lead intellectually curious web surfers on a wide ranging journey through “Origin’s” impacts on Anthropology, Biology, Geosciences, Polar Sciences and even Astronomy. There’s also a section dedicated to the author himself in the report.
One of the more intriguing questions answered by the scientists had to do with what they saw as the next big scientific discovery, eliciting such predictions as discovering life on other planets and discovering the Antarctic ice sheet is alive. The query was one of many posed in a series of online videos that examine Darwin’s impacts on science’s understanding of human evolution, global climate change, the origin of life and other questions.
Twelve researchers from the United States and London appear in the special report, each having written accompanying essays that look at “Origin’s” impacts on scientific discovery. The researchers are:
David Devorkin
Smithsonian Air and Space Museum
Richard Lenski
Michigan State University
Ross MacPhee
American Museum of Natural History
Ron Numbers
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Massimo Pigliucci
Stony Brook University
John Priscu
Montana State University
Marsha Richmond
Wayne State University
Jim Secord
University of Cambridge
Lynn Soreghan
University of Oklahoma
Judy Totman Parrish
University of Idaho
Ken Weiss
Penn State University
Tim White
University of California, Berkeley
The beautifully illustrated report also features a substantial timeline of scientific discoveries that pays special attention to events involving evolution spanning the decades from Nicolaus Copernicus’s first scientific treatise supporting the idea that the sun is at the center of the Solar System in 1543 to the faster sequencing of genomes in 2007.
You can check out a sweet interactive presentation of the report here.
Or check out the text only version here.