Darwin’s Five Major Theories Of Evolution
Today the 12th of February marks the 199th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth. Darwin is arguably the most important naturalist who has ever lived. He has shown us that we are products of a natural process and not by some magical power of god. This is why unlike the other giants of science like Einstein and Galileo, Darwin continues to be demonized by religious fanatics. Darwin’s ideas are the most powerful there is in exposing the lies and myths that religions seek to perpetuate. In the book What Evolution Is by Ernst Mayr, he enumerated five theories of evolution that Darwin postulated:
1) The nonconstancy of species (the basic theory of evolution)
2) The descent of all organisms from common ancestors (branching evolution)
3) The gradualness of evolution (no saltations, no discontinuities)
4) The multiplication of species (the origin of diversity)
5) Natural selection
Although new ideas and new facts have been discovered in the last century and a half since Darwin published his most important work, Origin Of Species, the above five theories have withstood the assault of scientific thinking but instead reinforced by new discoveries. We owe it to this great man the answer to one of man’s most important question: Where did we come from? We are not specially created by some cosmic being somewhere. The human species is, like any other extant species, but a leaf in the great Tree Of Life.
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