Darwin’s Day is celebrated annually on 12 February on the occasion of the birth of the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809-1882)with distribution and commemorative activities held worldwide and for Mirroring and acting on the progress of science, and spread the scientific legacy about evolution, inspiring people from all over the world in the principles of intellectual courage, eternal curiosity, scientific thinking and real hunger, embodied in Charles Darwin.
A productive life
Charles Darwin was born on February 12, 1809 Within a rich family, because his father was a reputable doctor. In fact, the first studies of the young Darwin were precisely medicine, although after trying of various topics, he was ultimately specialized in natural history.
He was a beetle collector (a very fashionable habit at the time of his childhood), he studied geology, natural theology (the one he tries to demonstrate through tangible and of course proof of God), he taught Taxidermia with an old slave And in the end he was invited to participate in the HMS Beagle Journey as a sampling collector.
The Beagle was a scientific ship whose goal was to perform a – -situ -cartography work from the contour of the coast of South America, a tough task that would last almost five years to complete. In the course of this trip in which Darwin He made a detailed story, was a real revaluation for the Naturalist who had started with just 22 years.
Despite the suffering of dizziness for the influence of the boat, Darwin carried out Conscient StudiesBoth copies he found, and from the country in which they were. In this way he came up with the idea for the first time that the same kind of certain changes could suffer, such as lived in one place or another.
On his return, fame was expected, but for Darwin His priority was to properly catalog the monsters he brought. From his notes and with the invaluable cooperation of other scientists, he started to penetrate an evolution theory that would put an end to the ideas of Lamarck, who were the only ones who were considered valid until that moment. In the meantime, he wrote various treaties, publications and three books about geology.
Lamarck argued that the evolution was linear, that is, an animal can “overcome” evolutionary A lower step to yours and darwin He argued that there was actually what he called an evolutionary tree and that no animal could be evolved more or less than another.
While he completed the book in which he would run the conclusions of his studies, he received letters from another naturalist, Edgar Wallace, who explained that he was working on a theory that was very similar to his. Darwin He published the letters from Wallace and his own conclusions, with the aim of sharing the authorship of the theory of evolution.
“The origin of the species” was published in 1859. The first paragraph is eloquent and says the following:
“Because many more individuals are born from any species that can survive and how, followed under the complex and sometimes variable life conditions, it will survive earlier and, if so, it will naturally be selected. According to the powerful inheritance principle, any selected variety will tend to spread its new and changed form ”
In this book he barely referred to the evolution of man, so Darwin continued to work on it. In 1871 it was published “The origin of man and the selection in relation to sex”, in which the author offers multiple tests, that all people still form a species, among all the animal kingdom, plus past the different sexual, racial and Cultural characteristics of each individual.
A worldwide party
Since Darwin He died at the age of 73, the tribute have not stopped on his figure and the many contributions he made to the sciences. When the first century of his birth was fulfilled, Cambridge welcomed more than 400 scientists who gathered to honor and discuss his work and the most recent discoveries of that time. In New York a bust of the naturalist was discovered and the Darwin celebration was held in New -Zeeland.
From there, hundreds of parties have been made in different parts of the World in honor of DarwinHis books, theories and his invaluable contributions. In the mid -90s, the celebration of the Darwin’s Daycoincide with the date of his birth. This idea had many followers between student communities and the campuses of teachers and a short time later institutionalized worldwide.
The idea of this commemoration is that people not only know the lives and work of these insignia times because of ignorance, you can give bad interpretations.
It is important to distinguish the idea of surviving the most suitable, with that of the strongest, because they do not always coincide. The most suitable will be the one who, despite the changes of the environment in which he lives, can produce his genes and transfer them to the next generation. Ultimately and through successive and useful mutations, their descendants can lead to a new species, better adapted to their environment.