2009 is the bicentennial of Darwin's birth and the sesquicentennial of his publication of On the origin of species. It's a sad commentary on the state of science education in the world that there are many people (and even a few scientists) who still don't understand the beauty, the power, and the unifying force of evolutionary theory. Darwin's fundamental insights -- that all living things are descended from a single common ancestor and that evolution by natural selection is responsible for organismal adaptation -- have been confirmed and reconfirmed for 150 years.In an effort to help spread the word, Nature has compiled a list of 15 "evolutionary gems" published in that journal over the last ten years. As they put it in the announcement:
[T]he document summarizes 15 lines of evidence from papers published in Nature over the past 10 years. The evidence is drawn from the fossil record, from studies of natural and artificial habitats, and from research on molecular biological processes.Evolutionary gems can be downloaded as a PDF from the Nature web site.
In a year in which Darwin is being celebrated amid uncertainty and hostility about his ideas among citizens, being aware of the cumulatively incontrovertible evidence for those ideas is all the more important. We trust that this document will help.
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