Demystifying Darwin

As we celebrate 200 years of Darwin’s birth, I want to disabuse certain myths surrounding this most misunderstood man in the world.

Myth 1: Charles Darwin turned to religion in his old age

This is a myth perpetrated by christian theologians. It wasn’t Darwin who turned to religion. It was Alfred Wallace. Wallace, who independently came up with the idea of natural selection, couldn’t bear the burden of scientific truth for too long and slipped into delusional comforts of spirituality. Darwin had the courage to face the implications of his enormous discovery and held on to his theory of natural selection for the rest of his life.

Nevertheless, even if Darwin had turned to religion in his older age, it doesn’t take anything away from his theory of natural selection. I, like many other level headed individuals, respect ideas for their intrinsic merit and refuse to judge them based on the authority of their authors.

Myth 2: As per Darwin’s theory, men descended from Monkey.

This is a myth perpetrated by ignorant biology teachers. Darwin never said human beings came from monkeys. All he said was - humans, monkeys, gorillas, orangutans and chimpanzees shared a common ancestor sometime in the past. If our Galilean ape brains have any difficulty in accepting this concept of shared ancestry, it is only because the intermediate apes between us and other primates are extinct now.

On the other hand, we often notice a continuous array of varieties between bull dogs and greyhounds. It is this continuum of surviving dogs that makes it acceptable for us that the bull dogs and the greyhounds shared a common ancestor sometime in the recent past.

Myth 3: Evolution is an unproven theory

This is a myth perpetrated by pseudo scientists. Evolution is a fact. It is a fact as much as gravity is a fact. In order to explain gravity, Albert Einstein proposed the theory of General Relativity. Similarly, in order to explain evolution, Charles Darwin proposed the theory of natural selection. So, while natural selection and general relativity are theories, gravity and evolution are facts and any denial of evolution is as absurd as saying gravity doesn’t exist.

General Relativity, being a theory, can in principle be falsified by a better scientific theory. But falsification of General Relativity doesn’t mean that our observation of gravity is unreal. In the same way, the concept of evolution can in principle be better explained by a scientific theory other than the theory of natural selection. Even in that unlikely event of another theory explaining evolution better, only the theory of natural selection can be considered erroneous, not the process of evolution.