What Darwin Didn't Know

Today's scientists marvel that the 19th-century naturalist's grand vision of evolution is still the key to life

By Thomas Hayden
Smithsonian magazine, February 2009, Subscribe

"Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history," Darwin (c.1880) said of a future in which his hard-won findings would be tested. (Bettmann / Corbis)

Charles Darwin was just 28 years old when, in 1837, he scribbled in a notebook "one species does change into another"—one of the first hints of his great theory. He'd recently returned to England after his five-year journey as a naturalist aboard the HMS Beagle. In South America, Oceania and most memorably the Galápagos Islands, he had seen signs that plant and animal species were not fixed and permanent, as had long been held true. And it was as if he had an inkling of the upheavals to come as he pored over specimens he had collected and others had sent him: finches, barnacles, beetles and much more. "Cuidado," he wrote in another notebook around that time, using the Spanish word for "careful." Evolution was a radical, even dangerous idea, and he didn't yet know enough to take it public.

For another 20 years he would amass data—20 years!—before having his idea presented publicly to a small audience of scientists and then, a year later, to a wide, astonished popular readership in his majestic On the Origin of Species, first published in 1859. Today, Origin ranks among the most important books ever published, and perhaps alone among scientific works, it remains scientifically relevant 150 years after its debut. It also survives as a model of logical thought, and a vibrant and engaging work of literature.

Perhaps because of that remarkable success, "evolution," or "Darwinism," can sometimes seem like a done deal, and the man himself something of an alabaster monument to wisdom and the dispassionate pursuit of scientific truth. But Darwin recognized that his work was just the beginning. "In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches," he wrote in Origin.

Since then, even the most unanticipated discoveries in the life sciences have supported or extended Darwin's central ideas—all life is related, species change over time in response to natural selection, and new forms replace those that came before. "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution," the pioneering geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky titled a famous essay in 1973. He could not have been more right—evolution is quite simply the way biology works, the central organizing principle of life on earth.

In the 150 years since Darwin published Origin, those "important researches" have produced results he could never have anticipated. Three fields in particular—geology, genetics and paleoanthropology—illustrate both the gaps in Darwin's own knowledge and the power of his ideas to make sense of what came after him. Darwin would have been amazed, for example, to learn that the continents are in constant, crawling motion. The term "genetics" wasn't even coined until 1905, long after Darwin's death in 1882. And though the first fossil recognized as an ancient human—dubbed Neanderthal Man—was discovered in Germany just before Origin was published, he could not have known about the broad and varied family tree of ancestral humans. Yet his original theory has encompassed all these surprises and more.

Around the world, people will celebrate Darwin's 200th birthday with lectures, exhibits and festivities. In England, where Darwin already graces the ten-pound note, a special two-pound coin will be struck. Cambridge University is hosting a five-day festival in July. In North America, Darwin events are scheduled in Chicago, Houston and Denver, among many other places. Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History established an "Evolution Trail" that highlights concepts from Darwin's work throughout the museum, and a special exhibit shows how orchids have evolved and adapted according to Darwin's theory.

As towering historical figures go, Charles Darwin does not provide much by way of posthumous scandals. The liberty-extolling Thomas Jefferson was slave master to his longtime mistress, Sally Hemings; Albert Einstein had his adulterous affairs and shockingly remote parenting style; James Watson and Francis Crick minimized their debt to colleague Rosalind Franklin's crucial DNA data. But Darwin, who wrote more than a dozen scientific books, an autobiography and thousands of letters, notebooks, logs and other informal writings, seems to have loved his ten children (three of whom did not survive childhood), been faithful to his wife, done his own work and given fair, if not exuberant, credit to his competitors.

He was born in Shrewsbury, England, on February 12, 1809, into a well-off family of doctors and industrialists. But his up-bringing wasn't entirely conventional. His family was active in progressive causes, including the antislavery movement. Indeed, an illuminating new book by Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin's Sacred Cause, concludes that Darwin's interest in evolution can be traced to his, and his family's, hatred of slavery: Darwin's work proved the error of the idea that the human races were fundamentally different. Both of his grandfathers were famous for unorthodox thinking, and Darwin's mother and physician father followed in those footsteps. Darwin's paternal grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, was a physician and natural philosopher of vast appetites—and correspondingly corpulent physique—who developed his own early theory of evolution. (It was more purely conceptual than Charles' and missed the idea of natural selection.) On his mother's side, Darwin's grandfather was the wealthy Josiah Wedgwood, founder of the eponymous pottery concern and a prominent abolitionist.

Darwin began training to be a physician but didn't have a taste for doctoring, so he moved on to studying for the Anglican priesthood at Cambridge. His real passion, however, was natural history. Shortly after graduation in 1831, he signed on for an unpaid position as a naturalist aboard the Beagle, which was about to embark on a survey of South American coastlines. During the five-year voyage Darwin collected thousands of important specimens, discovered new species both living and extinct and immersed himself in biogeography—the study of where particular species live, and why.

Upon his return to England in 1836, Darwin stayed busy, publishing scientific works on the geology of South America, the formation of coral reefs and the animals encountered during his Beagle expedition, as well as a best-selling popular account of his time aboard the ship. He married his cousin, Emma Wedgwood, in 1839, and by 1842 the growing Darwin family was established at Down House, in a London suburb. Charles, plagued by poor health, settled down with a vengeance.

By 1844, he was confiding in a letter to a fellow naturalist, "I am almost convinced (quite contrary to opinion I started with) that species are not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable." Still, he hesitated to publicize the idea, instead plunging into the study of domestic animal breeding—natural selection, he would argue, is not unlike the artificial selection practiced by a breeder trying to enhance or eliminate a trait—and the distributions of wild plants and animals. He devoted eight full years to documenting minute anatomical variations in barnacles. A prolific letter writer, he sought samples, information and scientific advice from correspondents around the world.

It was a young naturalist and professional specimen collector named Alfred Russel Wallace who finally spurred Darwin to publish. Working first in the Amazon and then in the Malay Archipelago, Wallace had developed an evolution theory similar to Darwin's but not as fully substantiated. When, in 1858, Wallace sent the older man a manuscript describing his theory of evolution, Darwin realized that Wallace could beat him into print. Darwin had an essay he had written in 1844 and Wallace's manuscript read at a meeting of the Linnean Society in London on July 1, 1858, and published together later that summer. Wallace, then on an island in what is now Indonesia, wouldn't find out about the joint publication until October. "There's been an argument about whether Wallace got screwed," says Sean B. Carroll, a biologist and author of books on evolution. "But he was delighted. He was honored that his work was considered worthy" to be included alongside that of Darwin, whom he greatly admired.

This first public airing of Darwinian evolution caused almost no stir whatsoever. But when Darwin published his ideas in book form the following year, the reaction was quite different. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life soon sold out its first press run of 1,250 copies, and within a year some 4,250 copies were in circulation. Allies applauded it as a brilliant unifying breakthrough; scientific rivals called attention to the gaps in his evidence, including what would come to be known as "missing links" in the fossil record; and prominent clergymen, politicians and others condemned the work and its far-reaching implications. In 1864 Benjamin Disraeli, later Britain's prime minister, famously decried the idea—barely mentioned in Origin—that human beings too had evolved from earlier species. "Is man an ape or an angel?" he asked rhetorically at a conference. "I, my lord, I am on the side of the angels. I repudiate with indignation and abhorrence those newfangled theories."

Darwin had anticipated such protests. "Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of a certain number of facts will certainly reject my theory," he wrote in Origin. But, he also said, "I look with confidence to the future, to young and rising naturalists, who will be able to view both sides of the question with impartiality."

The age of the earth was, for Darwin, a major unexplained difficulty. He recognized that a great deal of time must have been necessary for the world's diversity of plants and animals to evolve—more time, certainly, than the 6,000 years allowed by the leading biblical interpretation of earth's age, but more also than many scientists then accepted. In 1862, the physicist William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) calculated that the planet was unlikely to be more than 100 million years old—still nowhere near enough time for evolution to have acted so dramatically. "Thomson's views on the recent age of the world have been for some time one of my sorest troubles," Darwin wrote to Wallace in 1869. Further studies, including one by Darwin's son George, an astronomer, fixed earth's age at well under 100 million years.

It wouldn't be until the 1920s and 1930s that geologists, calculating the rates of radioactive decay of elements, concluded that the earth was billions of years old—according to the latest studies, 4.5 billion years. Darwin surely would have been relieved that there was enough time for evolution to have accounted for the great diversity of life on earth.

Modern geology has helped solve another puzzle that troubled Darwin—the existence of oddly similar terrestrial species on separate continents. How, for example, to explain the emus of Australia, ostriches of Africa and rheas of South America— large, flightless, long-necked birds with the same distinctive sternums? Early evolutionists, following Darwin, invoked scenarios such as long-gone land bridges stretching thousands of miles to explain how apparently related species could wind up so far apart. The outrageous truth wasn't revealed until the 1960s, when scientists discovered plate tectonics and confirmed that the continents, far from being permanent fixtures of land surrounded by water, were giant rafts floating on molten rock. This discovery justified the nagging suspicion of middle school students everywhere that the continents should fit together into a giant jigsaw puzzle, as indeed they once had. In Darwin's time, the idea that once-contiguous continents shifted apart, separating sister species one from another, would have been nearly as audacious as evolution itself.

Evolution explains the vast diversity of life on earth, with single species becoming many as they adapt to different environments. "Remarkably," says the evolutionary biologist Edward O. Wilson, "although his masterwork was entitled On the Origin of Species, Darwin really didn't pay much attention to how one species splits and multiplies into many." Darwin did acknowledge the importance of this process, called speciation, at the very end of Origin: "Life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one...whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved." But, says Wilson, Darwin focused on "how one species was transformed by some force or other into another species through time, not how species could multiply."

Darwin's famous Galápagos finches—more than a dozen species all descended from the same South American ancestor—would become the iconic example of speciation. But understanding the process would have to wait for the work of Wallace in the mid-1860s. "Wallace clearly expressed [speciation] in a major study made of butterflies of the Malay Archipelago," Wilson says. Wallace, working in an area with tens of thousands of islands, showed that a single butterfly species could slowly become many as it adapted to the specific conditions encountered on each island. "From then on biologists put more time into thinking about multiplication of species," Wilson says, "and by the turn of the century they had a pretty clear idea of how species originate. But that was something that Darwin held back a little."

Darwin knew that plant and animal species could be sorted into groups by similarity, such that birds clustered into songbirds and raptors, say, with each group subdivided again and again down to dozens or hundreds of distinct species. He also saw that the individuals within any given species, despite many similarities, also differed from one another—and some of those differences were passed from parents to their offspring. And Darwin observed that nature had a brutally efficient method of rewarding any variation that helped an individual live longer, breed faster or leave more progeny. The reward for being a slightly faster or more alert antelope? The lions would eat your slower neighbors first, granting you one more day in which to reproduce. After many generations and a great deal of time, the whole population would run faster, and with many such changes over time eventually become a new species. Evolution, Darwin's "descent with modification through natural selection," would have occurred.

But what was the source of variation and what was the mechanism for passing change from generation to generation? Darwin "didn't know anything about why organisms resemble their parents, or the basis of heritable variations in populations," says Niles Eldredge, a paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

In Darwin's era, the man who did make progress on the real mechanism of inheritance was the Austrian monk Gregor Mendel. In his abbey garden in the late 1850s and early 1860s, Mendel bred pea plants and found that the transmission of traits such as flower color and seed texture followed observable rules. For instance, when plants with certain distinct traits were bred with each other, the hybrid offspring did not have a trait that was a blend of the two; the flowers might be purple or white, but never an intermediate violet. This surprising result helped point the way toward the concept of "units" of inheritance—discrete elements of hereditary information. An offspring inherits a set of these genetic units from each parent. Since the early 1900s, those units of inheritance have been known as genes.

Mendel knew Darwin's work—his German copy of Origin was sprinkled with handwritten notes—but there's no evidence that Mendel realized that his units of inheritance carried the variation upon which Darwinian selection acted. "The interesting thing is that Mendel had both pieces of the puzzle in his hands, but he never put it together," says Michael Ruse, a historian and philosopher of science at Florida State University. "He never once said, 'Ah hah, I've got the answer to Darwin's problem.'" Mendel's discoveries remained obscure until after he died in 1884, and Darwin never knew of them. But what if he had? "If Darwin had read Mendel's papers, he might have picked up on it," Ruse says, "but I'm not sure it would have made much difference."

Today, comparative genomics—the analysis of whole sets of genetic information from different species—is confirming the core of Darwin's theory at the deepest level. Scientists can now track, DNA molecule by DNA molecule, exactly what mutations occurred, and how one species changed into another. (In one particularly fitting example, researchers are now working out the molecular changes that allowed Darwin's Galápagos finches to evolve different beaks in response to their different feeding strategies.) Darwin himself made a stab at drawing a "tree of life," a diagram that traces the evolutionary relationships among species based on their similarities and differences. But scientists are now constructing the most detailed tree of life ever, as part of the Encyclopedia of Life project (sponsored in part by the Smithsonian Institution), using DNA sequence data as well as traditional anatomical and behavioral characteristics to trace the precise evolutionary relationships among thousands and thousands of species.

There have been plenty of evolutionary surprises in recent years, things that Darwin never would have guessed. The number of genes a species has doesn't correlate with how complex it is, for example. With some 37,000 genes, rice has almost twice as many as humans, with 20,000. And genes aren't passed only from parent to offspring; they can also be passed between individuals, even individuals of different species. This "horizontal transfer" of genetic material is pervasive in bacteria; it's how antibiotic resistance often spreads from one strain to another. Animals rarely acquire whole genes in this way, but our own DNA is packed with smaller bits of genetic material picked up from viruses during our evolutionary history, including many elements that regulate when genes are active or dormant.

Do these surprises challenge the central idea of Darwinian evolution? "Absolutely not," says David Haussler, a genome scientist at the University of California at Santa Cruz. "I am struck with the fact daily that the more information we accumulate, the more validation we find of Darwin's theory." Once new material has nestled into a host's genome via horizontal transfer, the genetic material is as subject to natural selection as ever. Truly one of the most remarkable traits of Darwinism itself is that it has withstood heavy scientific scrutiny for a century and a half and still manages to accommodate the latest ideas. "So far the data sets we've looked at and the surprises we've found show that the essence of the idea is right," Haussler says.

Another growing field of biology is shedding further light on the origins of variation. Evolutionary developmental biology, or evo-devo, focuses on changes in the exquisitely choreographed process that causes a fertilized egg to mature. Behind one series of such changes are the so-called homeotic genes, which dictate where legs or arms or eyes will form on a growing embryo. These central-control genes turned out to be almost identical even in animals as different as worms, flies and human beings. Many researchers now think that much of evolution works not so much through mutations, or random errors, in the major functional genes, but by tweaking the ways by which developmental genes control other genes.

"The building blocks of squids and flies and humans and snakes are stunningly similar," says Carroll, of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, one of the founders of evo-devo. "It kind of upsets your worldview at first," he adds, "but then you see that it bolsters the Darwinian view a thousandfold. These kinds of connections were at the heart of descent with modification."

Carroll says he thinks Darwin would be thrilled with the evolutionary details scientists can now see—how, for example, changes in just a small number of regulatory genes can explain the evolution of insects, which have six legs, from their ancestors, which had even more. From there, it's a short step to solving some of the mysteries of speciation, working out the mechanics of exactly how one species becomes many, and how complexity and diversity can be built up out of very simple beginnings. "I think this is a new golden age of evolutionary science," says Carroll. "But what we're really doing is fleshing out Darwin's idea in ever greater detail."

Perhaps the most surprising discovery in recent years has to do with one of Darwin's predecessors in evolutionary theory. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, a French naturalist, developed his own theory of biological evolution in the early 19th century. He suggested that acquired traits could be passed along to offspring—giraffes that stretched to reach leaves on tall trees would produce longer-necked offspring. This "soft inheritance" became known as Lamarckism and soon proved susceptible to parody: Would clipping the tail off a rat lead to tailless pups? Of course not, and in time soft inheritance was dismissed, and Lamarck became a textbook example of shoddy thinking.

Then, in the early days of genetic engineering more than two decades ago, researchers inserted foreign genes into the DNA of lab animals and plants and noticed something strange. The genes inserted into such host cells worked at first, "but then suddenly they were silenced, and that was it, generation after generation," says Eva Jablonka, an evolutionary biologist at Tel Aviv University in Israel. Researchers figured out that the host cells were tagging the foreign genes with an "off switch" that made the genes inoperable. The new gene was passed to an animal's offspring, but so was the off switch—that is, the parent's experience influenced its offspring's inheritance. "Mechanisms that were at the time hypothetical proved to be real," says Jablonka, "and of course much more complicated than anyone thought, which is natural."

All sorts of changes in cellular machinery have shown up that have nothing to do with the sequence of DNA but still have profound, and heritable, impacts for generations to come. For example, malnourished rats give birth to undersized pups that, even if well fed, grow up to give birth to undersized pups. Which means, among other things, that poor old Lamarck was right—at least some acquired traits can be passed down.

Darwin included the concept of soft inheritance in Origin, mentioning "variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life, and from use and disuse," for example. It has been said that Darwin himself was not a particularly strict Darwinian, meaning that his work allowed for a wider variety of mechanisms than many of his 20th-century followers would accept. "In a way," says Jablonka, "we're going back to Darwin and his original, much broader notion of heredity."

Origin barely touched upon the most contentious evolutionary issue: If all life has evolved from "lower forms," does that include people? Darwin finally addressed the issue in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, published in 1871, explaining he had been studying human evolution for years, but "with the determination not to publish, as I thought that I should thus only add to the prejudices against my views." How right he was, both that "man is the modified descendant of some pre-existing form"—and that an awful lot of people would prefer to believe otherwise. They shared Disraeli's discomfort at being descended from apes and complained that evolution pushed a divine creator to the side.

Disbelief in human descent may have been a justifiable comfort in Darwin's time, when few fossils of human ancestors had been discovered, but the evidence no longer allows it. Darwin, in Origin, admitted that the lack of "intermediate varieties" in the geological record was "the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory."

The objection certainly applied to the paucity of ancestral human fossils in Darwin's time. Years of painstaking work by paleontologists, however, have filled in many of the important gaps. There are many more extinct species to be discovered, but the term "missing link" has for the most part become as outdated as the idea of special creation for each species. Anthropologists once depicted human evolution as a version of the classic "March of Progress" image—a straight line from a crouching proto-ape, through successive stages of knuckle draggers and culminating in upright modern human beings. "It was a fairly simple picture, but it was a simplicity born of ignorance," says biological anthropologist William Jungers of Stony Brook University in New York. "The last 30 years have seen an explosion of new finds."

There are now hundreds of known fossils, stretching back six to seven million years and representing about two dozen species. Some were our ancestors and others distant cousins. "There have been many experiments in human evolution," Jungers says, "and all of them but us have ended in extinction." Our direct ancestors evolved in Africa some 200,000 years ago and started spreading out perhaps 120,000 years later. Remarkably, our modern human forebears shared parts of Europe and western Asia with the Neanderthal species as recently as 30,000 years ago, and they may have also overlapped with two other long-gone ancient humans, Homo floresiensis and Homo erectus, in Southeast Asia. "We were never alone on this planet until recently," Jungers says.

Darwin himself was confident that the deep past would be revealed. "It has often and confidently been asserted, that man's origin can never be known," he wrote in 1871. "But ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." He also recalled, looking back on the shellacking he took for focusing on natural selection's role in evolution, that "the future must decide" whether "I have greatly overrated its importance." Well, the future has come down solidly on Darwin's side—despite everything he didn't know.

Asked about gaps in Darwin's knowledge, Francisco Ayala, a biologist at the University of California at Irvine, laughs. "That's easy," he says. "Darwin didn't know 99 percent of what we know." Which may sound bad, Ayala goes on, but "the 1 percent he did know was the most important part."

Thomas Hayden is the co-author of the 2008 book Sex and War: How Biology Explains Warfare and Terrorism and Offers a Path to a Safer World.

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Comments (45)

great work

Posted by sudha on January 16,2013 | 11:59 AM

Very interesting article==wish the article would have mentioned the Barel probability factor of randomly impossible probabilities. And the random probability of DNA code developing. Also, which evolved first RNA or DNA. Additionally, the irreducibly complexity of the eye developing. The very fact that Darwin had no idea of the complexity of the cell. These items would help divert readers from thinking there is of bias reporting.

Posted by John Dady on September 30,2012 | 08:57 PM

What evolution does is give a lot of people, who never learned how to do any useful work, nice financial returns.

Posted by Richard on February 18,2012 | 09:34 PM

My dear friends, after reading all of these coments I must say that there are two points of view. I believe the cosmos is the open space which is infinity it always existed. The universe is the matter within the cosmos which also existed in one form or another. Such as oxygen, hydrogen etc..etc magnetic forces . The universe is the most complete labratory in existance. Science is a fact. Much has been proven. Then there is religion, a belief in the creator. those who believe in this theory and I call it so because there is no proof that it is true. We don't know for sure.We can only go by what someone told us. You cannot put the two together. It's like apples and oranges.

Posted by Louis on December 31,2011 | 07:52 PM

@Robin how is evolution too wonderfull to be true, and is a god figure not too wonderfull to be true? lol there is a difference between religion and god. god is the universe, for the physical human not always understandable. we are heading towards a new age. and in this age we must accept that the god we worship, is just a mythical spin-off from reality. Soon you might understand. i was going to say smoke DMT ( dymethyltryptamine) search it and learn. but you should not take this unless understanding you have been lied to, and lying to yourself. but it is ok. because lying is a form of progress and process, maybe a low form, but you are heading the right way. :)

Posted by dymethyltryptamine on December 29,2011 | 11:11 AM

One of the biggest problems is that Evolutionists are believers to. Nowadays we have the Natural Selection exclusivity, and that is why the evidence of a form of design can't bee explained just by chance. The answer request not GOD but SEX. Sexual Selection is the actor that gives the sensation of design that no one wants to see. For more details please visit my blog here: http://nature-sucks.blogspot.com/

Posted by Rui Monteiro on May 23,2011 | 07:11 PM

Darwin was wrong in saying species can turn into other species...no they don't. And if someone wants to argue this, give an example.

Posted by t on March 19,2011 | 09:57 AM

This comment is to @Vegan_mom and anyone else who wonders about the dearth of viewpoints that allow evolution and creation to coexist - there is a middle ground that fully accepts evolution and science and fully accepts the role of God as Creator of the universe. It's called Evolutionary Creation, and it basically asserts that evolution occurs under the constant guidance of the Creator according to his Purpose and Plan - essentially, the apparently random mutations that are the mechanism for evolution occur under God's guidance according to the laws of physics. Anyways, if you think you'd be interested there is a fantastic book by the evolutionary biologist/theologian Dr. Denis Lamoureax called "Evolutionary Creation: A Christian Approach to Evolution" that's available on Amazon. Here's the link for anyone who's interested: http://www.amazon.ca/Evolutionary-Creation-Christian-Approach-Evolution/dp/1556355815

Posted by Marcus Cunningham on May 19,2010 | 01:55 PM

What did Darwin NOT understand about evolution?

Posted by Helen Jenkins on May 17,2010 | 11:34 AM

Junk science in USA Today March 29th, 2010, page 5D: Why did bugs grow wings to fly? by Dan Verano."Evolutionary biologist may have and answer" (may) "...but the fossil record offers no clues to their origin."...."Wings probably already graced the oldest know insect fossil..." (probably) They also state theories and propose answers, but really do not say with certainty "how or why". Come on guys...give me facts, repeatable scientific evidence, let’s see some real science….not speculation on why bugs grow wings.

Posted by Andy on March 29,2010 | 07:45 PM

I believe in God... Darwin is incorrect. Just read the Bible. God created the heavens and the earth and rested on the 7th day. Everything is too wonderful for it to happen "by chance." Everyone could be a Darwin... if you lined up people and let them each do what Darwin did, you would get multiple theories. Who says Darwin is right? Everyone could have their own experiments and come up with something different. Everything on the earth is a perfect and should just be enjoyed and not dissected apart.. can't we just appreciate the beauty that God gave us? I watched a program on TV that showed that the skull from supposedly a Meanderthal Man, was a con (it was a plaster skull that fooled the experts for decades!) How silly.

Posted by Robin on March 12,2010 | 01:20 AM

Life's Is A Fractal Of The Cosmos Evolution
The Origin, Nature And Mechanism of Life's Evolution
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/240/122.page#4668

A. "Should Evolutionary Theory Evolve?"
http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/56251/
Some biologists are calling for a rethink of the rules of evolution.

B. Life's evolution is a fractal of the cosmos evolution

Dear Bob Grant, you can extend the list of evolution theorists and the descriptions of their theories, but IMO none of them will survive into the 22nd century. Just wait and see.

Life is just one of many forms of mass in the universe, All of which are forms of energy. Life's evolution is a fractal of the cosmos evolution. It is so plain and simple, therefore unbelievable in view of the immense mountains of verbiage about it. The origin, nature and mechanism of life's evolution is the origin, nature and mechanism of the evolution of mass formats in the cosmos. So plain and simple that it hurts, it's embarassingly clear.

C. Take a peek at the Evolution Theory of the future. Brace yourself at the realization of its obviousness and simplicity. Start the search at the three brief basic English notes listed below.

Dov Henis
(Comments From The 22nd Century)
Updated Life's Manifest May 2009
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/140/122.page#2321
28Dec09 Implications Of E=Total[m(1 + D)]
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/184.page#4587
Cosmic Evolution Simplified
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/240/122.page#4427

Posted by Dov Henis on January 14,2010 | 03:16 AM

Agreed

Posted by Kenneth on January 2,2010 | 01:45 PM

This program is pretty good but I do have a nit to pick. At the beginning of the program, the narrator claims that birds are descended by dinosaurs, and in the middle the same claim is repeated. And yet, there is not one shred of evidence that was presented to support that proclamation. In fact, it is ironic that the narrator should make that claim because recent developmental evidence (the exact sort of evidence that is highlighted in this program) actually shows that birds are unlikely to have descended from dinosaurs. The early embryos of birds show the brief appearance of digits 1 and 5 before these limb buds disappeared in the later stages of the bird embryos. This is similar to the gill slits found in human embryos. The gill slit shows that humans evolved from an aquatic animal, a fish, and the fingers 1 and 5 of bird embryos show that birds evolved from a pentadactyl ancestor, contradicting the dinosaurian origin of birds. The theropod dinosaurs had fingers 1-2-3. They are tridactyls. Birds have fingers 2-3-4 and they evolved from a pentadactyl ancestor with fingers 1-2-3-4-5. Not only did the program's creator failed to present this important new piece of evidence, but he/she falsely implies that this particular NOVA program provides evidence to support the discredited dinosaurian origin of birds. Overall though, the program was a good introduction to evolutionary biology, but it is just too bad that the creator/writer of this particular program appears to be biased in favor of the dinosaurian origin of birds. If Darwin knew about the embryological evidence of the digital identity of bird fingers and the paleontological evidence that theropod dinosaurs had fingers 1-2-3, he would have rejected the dinosaurian origin of birds. :)

Posted by Cal King on December 31,2009 | 11:51 PM

Agreed

Posted by Kenneth Shavers on December 30,2009 | 06:50 PM

Strongly Agreed. I was going to say the same thing. Evolution is a still seriously flawed theory. Evolution is flawed so badly from its fundamental structure, that it itself requires faith to believe in it. The age old questions that have never been reasonably answered by evolutionist, such as were did life originate, and how? How could blind mathematical impossible chance, have produced such advanced living organism, such as a biologically LIVING cell. Not to mention the complex organism in which those cells make up which are crucial to sustain life, especially in more complex life forms. The complexity of the DNA itself, and how it's coded for various life forms, is still far beyond modern sicence to explain, and yet you have people who will say it was just an accindent of nature (Evolution). And dont even get started on the complexity,of the earth and universe. Also a mutation could only result in a variation of a trait that is already there. It provides variety, but never anything new. which is why a blue whale after a millions of years could possible turn gray, but never into a zebra.

Also another serious flaw is the extreme lack of fossil records for such massive, slow,changes in life forms that should be found all over the earth in the masses, and yet the amount questionable fossil evidence to support evolution is not enough to fill a coffin. It's such irony that evolutionist are qiuck to call the bible mythology, and they themselves create mythology not even based on reasonable sintific evidence. Not even based on reason itself.

Posted by Kenneth Shavers on December 30,2009 | 03:38 PM

I am convinced that evolution within species is a given. However, if we were to take male and female dogs from each breed and turn them loose on a deserted island in the middle of the ocean and come back in a hundred/thousand/million/trillion years, what do you think we would find? First of all, we would find dogs, but they would all be mutts. Would they be big or little, smart or stupid? Would they have three/eight eyes, be walking on two or eight legs/flying/climbing trees/living under water? I will say no, but you would have to admit those would be some handy improvements. There would be no intelligent design going on. Just random reproduction between the fittest dogs, maybe not the smartest.

Would the dogs have changed into elephants, giraffes, monkeys? How many years must we wait for those? I will need to see a lot of cross specie transition fossils to convince me that any of that is possible.

Have you ever noticed that all Thomas Kincaid paintings have a similar theme? (night landscapes with lighting). God also has a theme running throughout all his handy work, it is what scientist have termed DNA. All of the evolutionary scientist need to thank God for giving them something to look at under the microscope. Nothing comes from nothing...not even a Big Bang, even a Big Bang requires something to bang.

I think it takes more faith to believe that all these wonderful creations on this earth started with a single non existent particle than to accept that God did it. My advice: Do not start in the Bible with Genesis, start with Jesus Christ and work your way back to the Genesis. I believe the chicken came before the egg. And, that God made the chicken. No, I do not know who made God, but, I plan to ask him some day. I love the old saying, if I am wrong, (there is no God) then no big deal, but if you are wrong...don't say no one told you so.

Posted by Andy on December 29,2009 | 11:14 PM

I have been doing a lot of research on Darwin and Intelligent Design here lately. And I must say from the reading I have done I do not understand why we couldn't have been designed by someone with greater intelligence then us but our body has evolved along the way. I do not understand why people are so closed minded about everything. I believe we were created by a greater hand but bodys had to change along the way.

Posted by Shianne on December 19,2009 | 12:03 PM

Sometimes the answer is simple.Everything is made so we will question and make an intellectual decision to have or have not faith in God, our Creator.Everything is as God made it- perfect . This doesn't mean life is without pain and death and war. He made man with the right to choose and life around is the consequence (fallen from His perfection). So now everything happens due to natural law, every action and reaction. It is though to me perfect , the fact that we are alive and breathing in a trillion trillion lightyears of space is beyond incredable.The fact that we are a species that shares the earth with hundreds of thousands of species of creatures is beyond impossible. The fact that we as a people know nothing regarding how great God is will someday be absolutely unforgivable.

Posted by James on October 10,2009 | 08:35 AM

Has anyone ever considered that the creator used different forms of (YES)evolution to many points of his creation, Not man, NO! but to other parts of growth. I conclude that if any and or all facts of evolution found on or in the earth and sea, are a direct responce of creation it's self Therefore: I conclude that the one and only creator, if you seek him, will evolutionize your mind. Consider that both are true, Creation and Evolution, where are the arguments now? Makes the most of my thinking. The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources (Albert Einstein) The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing (Albert Einstein) PROBLEM SOLVED?

Posted by Sundance on April 7,2009 | 10:03 PM

Which aspect of the nature and function of " toolkit" genes excludes the possibility of an intelligent designer ?

Posted by W West on March 8,2009 | 03:50 PM

I do believe in evolution within a species-the fossil record to this point has not shown me a cat/dog in the making or anyother cross species fossil. Until then, I will not be convinced.(oh I forgot about the jackalope)I probably would need a little more than that too-

Posted by B.Johnson on March 5,2009 | 11:58 AM

What is sad is that for the Darwinists in the room, there is no room within their heads for an alternative theory, whereas for those with a Creationist bent, they easily seem able to find room not only for both ideas, but to reconcile them. If science is built upon replicable experiments, then both Creationism and Darwinism fail. Neither has sufficient basis in replicable experiments to call either a science. But, neither theory can exclude the other. So, "let's all try to get along" - in the words of Rodney King, himself either a child of God or the best evolution can provide. . . One thought before I go - in virtually every case, mutations lead to inviable offspring or spontaneous abortion of the abnormal fetus. So how is it that random mutations are supposed to account for the grand variety of reproducing life?

Posted by Thinker_First on February 27,2009 | 11:49 PM

In reference to Samantha Stockton's statement about God writing the Bible and God would not lie to us. Have you ever looked at the history of the Bible, or the many enterpitations of the Bible which was written by man,or many men.In the end one man wrote a version of the Bible he thought would pacify everyone. He was free to leave out various books of the Bible and to change the wording or meaning to the way HE wanted it to be. Please excuse the spelling errors.

Posted by on February 27,2009 | 10:56 PM

I am a new subscriber to the Smithsonian. It was a free offer that I thought looked interesting. While I have not fully read the Darwin article, (I have a 17-month-old daughter. Who has time to read. Wait. I have time to get on-line...) I have found it to be interesting. Samantha, some would say, "Just read, 'On the Origin of Species'," to try and support their view of evolution. I believe that there is some truth to the Creation theory. I believe in God. I'm a Christian, but not a fundie. I do not know enough on either side to really make a strong argument, but I do believe that we, as humans, do not look the same as what we did when Adam and Eve (and Lilith, assuming any of them were the first humans) walked the earth, or perhaps even Jesus. Things change. However, I don't believe that we are here just by chance, either. What I would like, is a reference to any websites, or books that espouse both sides and harmonize them as both being "right". Unfortunately, I do not know what I should about either side. On Friday, my husband and I will be seeing a production of "Inherit the Wind." We saw it on Broadway a couple of years ago. We were late to the theater (we were with friends who grew up on Long Island and are very familiar with the City and he took a wrong turn) and being five months pregnant and exhausted, I fell asleep during the last 10-20 minutes. What I did see, I thought would be great for youth group discussions, Bible study, etc. My husband, a pastor (who thinks the way I do in this matter), wants to do a Bible study that examines both sides, including showing the movie, "Inherit the Wind". I did not know, until reading this article, that Darwin just wanted to prove that the human races were all the same, and that one wasn't "better" than the other. I do not know about his faith and in what he believed, though. I will definitely be looking more into this.

Posted by Vegan_Mom on February 23,2009 | 08:09 AM

A belief in God and a belief in science are not mutually exclusive. Religion and all its forms of expression or belief, to include creationism, should be taught in churches. Science and all its disciplines should be taught in our schools. I believe in God, and I believe Darwin was correct. No conflict, no exclusivity of truth, or belief.

Posted by Jeremy on February 21,2009 | 05:25 PM

Many of these opinions suggest a mutually exclusive relationship between "creationism" and "Darwinism". I like to think more along the lines that Michelangelo's depiction of the "Creation Of Adam" shows. That there is an extraordinary tie between the two: the already evolved ape recieves his soul from God.

Posted by Thos. Smythe on February 21,2009 | 02:56 PM

Christine quotes: "works NOT SO MUCH BY RANDOM ERRORS in the functional genes, but by tweaking....developmental genes". She is putting the capital letters in the wrong place. Try reading it like this: "works not so much by random errors in the FUNCTIONAL GENES, but by tweaking....DEVELOPMENTAL GENES". The author is not making a distinction between "random errors" and "tweaking", by which he evidently means the same thing; but between functional and developmental genes, which are different things. And no, Christine, the problem is not that "Hayden and Carroll were addressing only ideological proponents of evolution theory like yourself", but that Hayden and Carroll were addressing people who know the first darn thing about genetics. Now, arguably there is no difference between people who understand genetics and people who are proponents of evolution; however, knowledge of genetics is not an "ideology".

Posted by Dr A on February 21,2009 | 01:33 PM

I read with some bewilderment at the resolute manner both sides taks on this issue. I am Darwininst/Creationist, if there is such a thing. I believe in science in that the Earth is the age it is purported to be through carbon dating.I also have read and observed things that go to a force or God or whatever you may call it. Things don't happen through sheer force of will. The scientific world bases it conclusions on observations. A new observation and the perspective change. I read some years ago Behe's book, Darwin's Black Box. His conclusions were very much on the side of Darwin, no equivocation at all. Not that long ago I viewed a discussion with another scientist who espoused Darwin, but to my surprise Behe had completely changed his point of view. Did he get religion, I doubt it he is a scientist who bases his conclusions on observation. There are many good answers, but there are also many good questions.

Posted by N Boundy on February 20,2009 | 10:07 PM

Responding the question about ""Evolution...works not so much through mutations or random errors....but by tweaking the ways in which developmental genes control other genes". A careful reading shows that what is being said is that change comes not so much through the SORTS of genetic mutations and such that we expected, but rather from the control that the developmental genes exert. That is, a frog looks like a frog not so much because of some random mutation that made it look such, but because of the developmental genes that control just how limbs are placed and formed. The natural selection/randomness has not been pushed out of the equation. Rather, it is being said that the random factor is not so much in the genes...but in the developmental genes that control the other genes. Hope this is of help!

Posted by Aaron Scott on February 20,2009 | 03:50 AM

god created the world it is impossible for the world to happen by chance.there is no proof of evolution but there is proof of the creation, just read the Bible.what makes more sense? it just happened or creative design. i am 100 percent sure that Charle Darwin is wrong.god wrote the Bible and it says the truth about the creation and i know it is the truth because GOD would not lie to us.

Posted by Samantha Stockton on February 18,2009 | 08:06 PM

I believe that Darwin was a great man. He single-handedly changed the world's perception on human life. If Darwin hadn't done what he did, we all would be in the dark about where we came from. Even though he did miss a lot of things, he did explain a lot of things that people couldn't prove wrong. The church had something to say about that, but he stuck by his hunches and persevered. It is a good thing people began to believe him. Had his theory been dropped, we would have no explanation for anything in this world

Posted by Jordan Jaynes on February 18,2009 | 06:18 PM

in response to ... "Please, tell me what on earth is Sean Carroll talking about in the quote on page 46 of article when he states that it is now thought that "Evolution...works not so much through mutations or random errors....but by tweaking the ways in which developmental genes control other genes"." All this means is that more often than not, evolutionary changes happen as a result of genes' on-off switches being flipped, whereas conventional thinking had assumed that any changes would happen as a result of removing existing and/or adding new genes. In other words, the development or "tweaking" lies in the ability to keep genetic information but make it inactive, instead of losing it altogether (where it might then have to be re-acquired again later on).

Posted by baloo on February 17,2009 | 03:16 PM

Darwinism is a religion, a pseudo-science. It relies on believes, not on scientific experiments. Over the last 150 years, there has been no single scientific research that can repeat just one-step in the so-called evolution process. That is already enough to say that Darwinism and evolutionism are pseudo-science. Besides, scientific research on RNA level has already proven that the Darwin-tree is a total fake. That is why the evolutionism must rely on political-government power to get into public schools rather than science itself.

Posted by lyz on February 14,2009 | 02:22 PM

An excellent article by Thomas Hayden.
Evolutionary biology is a cornerstone of modern science. Rapid advances being made in agriculture, life sciences and medicine rest on information, understanding and principles derived from an understanding of evolution. Scientific understanding of evolution is neither incomplete, in doubt, or in some way incorrect. Biological evolution is not random. When DNA is copied within cells, mistakes, copying errors are made. These are mutations and most do not alter traits or affect fitness. Some mutations, however, give individual organisms an enhanced ability to survive and leave offspring, while others do not, and have their reproductive fitness lowered. The process by which those organisms with advantageous mutations (or natural variability) have greater reproductive success than other organisms within a population is called natural selection.
I suggest that interested readers examine "Science, Evolution, and Creationism" published in 2008 by the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine. This 70 page profusely illustrated color booklet is available free for teachers from the NAS press (www.nap.edu)
Happy 200th to Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln!

Posted by Stephen Buchmann on February 14,2009 | 12:54 PM

All evidence has supprted with Darwin's concept and none has been presented that contradicts it. The Creationists coined a new phrase, "Intelligent Design," but it is the same people with the same argument. Modern biology rests on evolution. Biology rests on chemistry and chemistry rests on physics. As to the comment about dogs, most serious observers think that all dogs came down from wolves. Science is becoming more integrated with each passing year. I know that it bothers people to think that life is based on random selection. Some believe in "life giving myths." But nature always trumps man's actions and opinions.

Posted by Donald W. Bales, M.D. retired on February 9,2009 | 04:47 PM

Darwinism and it’s newly discovered evo-devo biology, to me is another vista for appreciation of the beauty of the Lord’s superior design and not proof of the lack of a God. How knowledgeable of the incredulity of the universe must we become before we get even more excited and determined to increase our knowledge, appreciation, and thankfulness for its holiness or wholeness. I believe that “evo-devo biology” is simply our becoming more aware of ourselves and who we are in God’s plan and a key link into his uniting us to himself in order for us to be more able and capable of doing his will. Someone asked one time “Can the human being continue to increase its athletic performance infinitely?” I believe the answer lies in “evo-devo biology” and not in drugs. In other words if we believe that if any evolutionary trait would be beneficial to the human race, through human desire, appreciation, dedication, cooperation and communication with God, we can make it happen. We need to begin believing that any and all truths about our being and the functions of world, that we discover, are no more than the will of God. We need to see how unity, caring and love can and will be successful. We need to see how greed and hatred are counterproductive because they do not allow the will of God.

Posted by Joseph Beaudoin on February 7,2009 | 02:15 PM

Hi Everyone, this is Thomas Hayden, the author of this article. Thank you all very much for reading it--biological evolution is a fascinating phenomenon, and I'm glad so many people are interested in learning more about it. I've already had my say in the article, so I won't weigh in on everything, but I did want to see if I could answer a question or two and clear up a little confusion.

@Christine Giroux's original question makes me regret my word choice in the passage she partially quotes (@Mason is right, it's not a quote from Carroll, it's a statement from me, and based on the work of scores of scientists over more than 20 years ... whatever you think of the statement, please blame me, not Carroll!).

As @Robert Dawson suggests, I did indeed intend "tweak" as shorthand for a minor random change, rather than a major random change. I did not mean to say or imply anything about non-random changes and I'm sorry for any confusion that resulted. Let me see if I can do a little better this time ... this passage is about the really exciting work being done to figure out not just the broad mechanisms behind evolution--that's what Darwin did-- but to discover the actual steps that occurred over time as evolution took place by the process Darwin observed and described so well, namely random variation and natural selection. It's important to point out that this work isn't theoretical or speculative--it's a direct reading of evolutionary history, right down at the molecular level. So, here's what I should have said:

"One of the really interesting observations that 'evo devo' biologists have made is that when it comes to shaping body forms, much of the random variation that Darwin observed occurs not as major random changes in the DNA ('mutations') of important structural genes, as was once theorized, but as relatively minor random changes in the DNA of developmental or control genes." It's terrific science--rigorous, tested, reproducible--and as @Peter suggests, the small changes in developmental genes can have dramatic effects on the form of the adult animals and their evolution over time. But far from being a new understanding or theory of how life developed, it is simply a clarifying insight that tells us more about how evolution works at a very detailed level. If anyone would like to learn more about the insights of evolutionary developmental biology, Carroll's book "Endless Forms Most Beautiful" is an excellent place to start.

So anyway, no ideology or narrow focus here--just an exploration of a fascinating, enlightening area of human endeavor, i.e. evolutionary biology. As @Mason says, Darwin was remarkably right about how evolution works when he first described the process 150 years ago, but there's still lots of interesting science going on to work out all the details. And I think that's a story we can all enjoy and benefit from learning more about.

Thanks again for reading! Thomas Hayden

Posted by Thomas Hayden on January 30,2009 | 11:37 AM

Christine, I don't believe the statement is saying that all selection is non-random. Rather, for one mechanism, specifically the genes discussed that determine basic form, changes are not due to random mutations (i.e. major dna changes producing a radically different form) but subtle (tweaked?) changes in the way an offspring develops as a result of certain genes that control early development. It makes sense to me that the tiniest modifications of embryonic development can have significant manifestations at adulthood. And this is only talking about one mechanism for change that is subsequently subject to natural selection.

Posted by Peter on January 28,2009 | 03:26 PM

Robert, I was aware of the possible metaphorical nature of the word "tweaking" in the quote. And I wasn't toiling over semantics. Carroll's quote is preceded by the statement by Hayden that many scientists now believe that evolution "works NOT SO MUCH BY RANDOM ERRORS in the functional genes, but by tweaking....developmental genes". So I really don't see how I was to interpret the word "tweaking" as "RANDOMLY affecting with consequences that incur selection" as you suggest that I do. Evo-devo, which was new to me, seems like a whole new theory of how life developed. Maybe I need to read up on it, but based on the article, I just don't understand how it bolsters Darwinism. But that's probably because Hayden and Carroll were addressing only ideological proponents of evolution theory like yourself.

Posted by Christine Giroux on January 27,2009 | 08:42 PM

There is no proof for Darwin's heresy and imaginitive theory of evolution. The only part that is true is the fact that species can produce variants within the species because of breeding or other circumstances such as environmental changes which can lead to adaptations. Species cannot create or evolve into other species - dogs have always been dog from the dog kind just as horses and zebras all come from a commom horse kind ancestor. There is however proof of intelligent design by a Devine Creator - The proof is all around you - just open your eyes and use your common sence.

Posted by Sonnet Kramer on January 27,2009 | 04:01 PM

Is Christine intentionally paraphrasing the sentence she attributes to Sean Carroll to change its point, or just missing the point of the sentence? The sentence from the article (not a quote from Carroll at all, but written by the author) states: "Many researchers now think that much of evolution works not so much through mutations, or random errors, in the major functional genes, but by tweaking the ways by which developmental genes control other genes." This sentence does not say that evolution does not work through mutations, but that it is not due to mutations in "major functional genes". What genes become mutated to produce the raw material for natural selection?: the "developmental genes" that "control other genes." This is the finding of modern developmental biology, which does not refute Darwin's central ideas but builds on them. This is the great point of this article - after 150 years we know so much more than Darwin could have imagined. If science is working properly, I would hope that 150 years of research would add a great deal of knowledge and understanding. But the central Darwinian concepts: that all life is connected through descent from common ancestors and that natural selection is a major (but not only) mechanism causing evolutionary change is still being confirmed by new discoveries.

Posted by Mason on January 26,2009 | 10:48 PM

A very interesting article. thanx.

Posted by mark hurney on January 24,2009 | 09:41 PM

The fact that natural selection does not support "the classic 'March of Progress'" is a lesson of caution: with no guarantee of noble descendants, it is up to culture to assure such progress.

Posted by Jim Carlisle on January 24,2009 | 09:35 PM

If we focus on the human race and especially that which we exerience every day, we see that those of high intelligence tend to selet mates which also have relatively high intelligence just as those who enjoy execise may chose mates with similar traits. Thus as intelligence (choice) enters into what was once random selection we may see more specifity in the traits of offspring which may continue through many generations. I certainly see this in the four generations of my family line to which I have had personal exposure.

Posted by Jerald Christiansen on January 24,2009 | 04:13 PM

You're toiling over semantics, Christine. "Tweaking" is obviously intended metaphorically, in the genre of a pathetic fallacy. It has to be understood as "randomly affecting with consequences that incur selection." The use of the work "tweaking" was probably a tactical error, but then Carroll was not trying to address ideological opponents of "evolution theory" like yourself. You seem not even to be at the stage of realizing that "evolution" doesn't need to be proven any more than photosynthesis. That it happens is simply observable. Darwin and Carroll, and everyone between them, have been concerned with developing a theory of HOW it happens. Nobody would claim that such a theory is yet 100% complete.

Posted by Robert dawson on January 24,2009 | 04:01 PM

I am a new subscriber to the Smithsonian although I can not number the times my family and I have visited the many exhibits, most recently during the christmas season. However I don't recall ever seeing any presentation of the Creation theory supported by the Bible, verses the Darwin theory which as this article confirms is still questionable. Maybe I have just missed it so could someone confirm where it might be so that on our next visit we could enjoy this comparison. Thank you

Posted by A.C. Townsend on January 24,2009 | 03:40 PM

I don't understand Carroll's statement either, but I have been doing some reading in mathematics which states that randomness is not really random, but obeys mathematical laws which we are just beginning to understand. So "random errors" would not be applicable. I don't think anyone has explored the application of this new thinking about randomness to evolution. It would imply that the "intelligence" is not genes controlling other genes, but rather the "intelligence" of mathematical laws.

Posted by Roy W Johnson on January 24,2009 | 03:20 PM

Even forgiving the lack of "proof" of evolution,"undermining evo-devo" may so harsh as to call into question the poster's understanding of the complex mechanism of evolution. Animal breeders have certainly proved that sexual selection is an exercise in applied evolution. Sexual selection can play a role in natural evolution, it is a contributing factor in the mechanism of evolutionary change. Other nuances of how the evolutionary mechanism works in nature are being illuminated by carefully controlled research and the kind of methodical record keeping that must withstand scrutiny. Gene expression research has a long way to go but must certainly be considered when attempting to understand the mechanism of change. Who knows, some sort of endocrine feedback loop may one day vindicate Lamarck's hunch that individual response to environmental situations may be another factor that contributes to change. The strength of Darwin's theory is that the foundation is rock-solid and will continue to support new insight. Keep your eyes, ears and mind open.

Posted by Bob Roseberry on January 23,2009 | 05:48 PM

Please, tell me what on earth is Sean Carroll talking about in the quote on page 46 of article when he states that it is now thought that "Evolution...works not so much through mutations or random errors....but by tweaking the ways in which developmental genes control other genes". This statement on its face is mind-blowing. How does this happen? How does Evolution "tweak" anything? The whole principle of evolution is based on RANDOM mutations. Even Darwin didn't present it as an "intelligence" that "does" anything. Why doesn't Hayden go into this evo-devo theory a little more and explain this non-random "tweaking"?!! This quote completely undermines the entire article, and the fact that Hayden includes it as something that "bolsters" the theory of evolution leaves me believing that he is looking for ANYTHING to glorify and support a theory that has not been definitively proven, which it hasn't!!

Posted by Christine Giroux on January 22,2009 | 05:55 PM

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What Darwin Didn't Know

Today's scientists marvel that the 19th-century naturalist's grand vision of evolution is still the key to life

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