By – Dr. N. Munal Meitei
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” – Charles Darwin
Darwin Day is celebrated on the birthday of Charles Darwin on 12 February 1809 in England. The day is used to highlight Darwin’s contributions to Science and Environment to revolutionize our understanding of the natural world, introducing the theory of evolution by natural selection.
Darwin showed an early passion for collecting plants and insects, which later developed into a career in natural history. As a naturalist, Darwin spent many years on traveling the world, collecting diverse specimens of plants, animals, fossils, rocks and making meticulous observations in South America and the Galápagos Islands.
Back in England, by analyzing his findings, he developed the theory of natural selection -the idea that individuals with traits better suited to their environment are more likely to survive and reproduce. He published “On the Origin of Species” in 1859, providing evidence for evolution. Later, “The Descent of Man” in 1871suggested humans evolved from earlier ancestors. Darwin passed away in 1882 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
Darwin viewed the environment not just as a backdrop, but as an active agent driving the evolution of species. He described a natural community as a “tangled bank,” where all organisms are in a constant, fierce struggle for existence, feeding on or competing with one another. He used this term to describe the interactions between living organisms and their environment, a foundational concept for modern ecology.
Darwin hypothesized that species adapt to environmental shifts over time, a slow process he called natural selection. While often focusing on biological interactions, Darwin acknowledged that in extreme environments -like deserts or high mountains -the struggle for life is primarily with the “elements”.
Darwin’s work revealed that species and their environments are intimately connected and co-evolve. He explained that the vast diversity of life results from natural selection favoring favorable variations over generations. He replaced the notion of a static nature with a view of a “historical” planet, where the present is the result of long-term, slow changes. Today, his insights are fundamental to understand biodiversity loss, climate change impacts and the need for ecological conservation.
Darwin’s legacy is deeply interconnected the understanding of life and Earth. Darwin taught us that inter-connectivity is everything. When we alter the environment, we aren’t just changing the scenery; we are changing the “rules of the game” for every living organism. If the environment changes faster than a species can adapt, that species disappears.
Perhaps the greatest impact Darwin had on our worldview was moving humans from the “center” of the universe to a branch on the tree of life. He showed that we are subject to the same biological laws as the smallest moss or the largest whale. Charles Darwin also studied the relationship between living and extinct animals and found that these living animals share similar traits.
As per Charles Darwin’s theory, all organisms had one common ancestor at some point in time and kept on diverging ever since. Darwin’s idea of natural selection states, species keep on evolving or changing with time. As the environment changes, the requirements of an organism also change and they adapt to the new environment and only the upper changes are naturally selected and therefore the lower ones are eliminated. Thus, a progressive evolution cannot be expected from all the adaptations. For example, people living in tropical countries have more melanin in their body to guard them from the daylight.
Darwin came about Reverend Thomas Malthus’ work on population in 1838, which states that with the human population increasing at a rate significantly higher than that of the most optimistic rate for the growth of resources, the human race would eventually end up competing with each other for food in order to survive. From this, Darwin concluded that the competition for limited resources predicted for the human race could also be applied to animal and plant species as well. In his work, he demonstrated that earthworms are key ecological agents, natural power-tillers and transforming the soil and landscapes over geological time.
Much of the scientific community of 19th century, rejected Darwin’s theory, mainly on the basis of his theory being too dependent upon chance events. With the focus of science having moved from uncertainty to certainty, any scientist would need to provide a rigid conclusion that could be supported by hard evidence to get the acceptance of others. Many scientists felt Darwin failed to do so, and that his theory of evolution was established on a number of assumptions.
But in 1909, more than 400 scientists and dignitaries from 167 countries met in Cambridge to honour Darwin’s contributions and discussed vigorously the recent discoveries and related theories contesting for acceptance. Darwin’s research fundamentally changed how we perceive the environment, transitioning from a view of nature as static to one of constant, slow change driven by interaction with surroundings.
Darwin is still considered as one of the greatest contributors to the field of Biology and Environment. His revolutionary theory of evolution by natural selection allowed people to break free from the traditional belief of special creation. It also gave the opportunity to build on a purely scientific foundation. We assume the fact that Darwinian school of thought is the best in theory of Evolution.
(The author is Environmentalist, presently working as DFO/Chandel. email- nmunall@yahoo.in)