What would you tell Darwin?

Penelope · Thu Sep 30, 2010 9:12 am

Well fancy me putting a new topic into Science and Technology!!!

Anyway this is our next SciBar Meeting:-


	Quote: Scibar Tuesday - What would you tell Darwin? Dear all, Scibar on Tuesday 5th October 2010 will ask "What would you tell Darwin?". It is 150 years since The Origin of Species was published and much has changed; not only in science but also in society. If you could tell Darwin one thing, what would it be? How DNA works? Genetic engineering? Or how his work has influenced our society and beliefs? Prof Greg Hurst of University of Liverpool has pondered this question and asked it to many people from scientitsts to school children. Come along and hear some of the most interesting and amusing answers he received. As always you will be welcome to give your own opinions and answers to Greg's question. You can also ask Greg about the work he does in evolution and ecology. Remember there's no such thing as a silly question at Scibar!

So, I would like to know what you, here on Booktalk, would tell him and if you like, I'll tell Scibar on your behalf and ask Prof Greg Hurst what he thinks. :wink:

johnson1010 · Thu Sep 30, 2010 10:43 am

i would smack him on the ass and say, "Good on ya."

Penelope · Thu Sep 30, 2010 10:57 am

I would ask him if he began to understand the theory of natural selection, by mixing words:-

It was explained to me by a friend thus:

Take ten verbs, ten nouns, ten adverbs, and ten adjectives - keep them in their grammatical categories, but otherwise mix them up - you will get some poetic and powerful sentences, and you will get some nonsense. And that is how natural selection of genes works.

Is this a good way of demonstrating it?

johnson1010 · Thu Sep 30, 2010 4:43 pm

In a way. This example is a little like the accusation of a hurricane hitting a junk heap and assembling a passenger plane.

Imagine instead that you have a sentence.

"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog."
This represents a lifeform. Complexity is already present (like a DNA molecule).

The sentence is copied many times, sometimes with an error.

"The quick brown fod jumps over the lazy dog."

In the context of this being a sentence, this mutation, or error, is disadvantageous. It is no longer copied

Other times it works out alright.
"The quick brown fox jumps Rover, the lazy dog."

Now there are two variants of the successful sentence. They both reproduce and both are subject to change through error.

Sentence 1 continues on, still able to generate other variants:
"The quick brown ox jumps over the lazy dog."

Sentence 2 does the same.
"The quick brown foe jumps Rover, the lazy dog."

These can continue to change until the sentence expresses something completely different.

"The quick brown foe jumps Rover, the lazy Don."
Now the sentence speaks about somebody in brown, an enemy of Rover, the complacent mob boss, who attacks him when he isn't expecting it.

This is about a 6% difference in sentence structure from the original, but already it says something quite different. The difference between Humans and Lemurs, perhaps.

Dexter · Fri Dec 17, 2010 6:26 pm

I just saw this old thread as I was browsing the forums.

It's a no-brainer to me. As I've read about evolution, it occurred to me how great it would be if Darwin could see the discovery of DNA and the mechanism that he had no way of understanding in his time. I can't think of a better example in history of telling a scientist about what he or she missed.

johnson1010 · Sat Dec 18, 2010 9:50 am

That's true.

All the study of biology confirms Darwin's early theory. DNA molecule, the fossil record, stages of developement all confirm his theory. It would be highly rewarding to see that years down the road your work was a building block for perhaps the most successful explaination of natural occurances in all of history.

Penelope · Sat Dec 18, 2010 3:27 pm

Oh, if ever you come to England - do visit Charles Darwin's House in Windsor:-

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/days ... own-house/

You can spend hours there.....

He came from a wealthy family who could afford to educate him well. Like Mozart.....Oh the value of education...

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