Access
This article is part of Nature's premium content.
Published online 19 November 2008 | Nature 456, 295 (2008) | doi:10.1038/456295a
News Feature
Darwin 200: Beyond the origin
Celebrating the man and the book.
Charles Darwin did not merely open a new chapter in the story of biology; he opened a new book. The publication of On the Origin of Species in 1859 was an event without any parallel, the sudden and powerful exposition of a new view of life as mutable, competitive and shaped by its environment laid out in the form of one long argument.
To read this story in full you will need to login or make a payment (see right).
Comments
Reader comments are usually moderated after posting. If you find something offensive or inappropriate, you can speed this process by clicking 'Report this comment' (or, if that doesn't work for you, email redesign@nature.com). For more controversial topics, we reserve the right to moderate before comments are published.
Darwin's theory filled an intellectual void in the scientific community and responded to their psychological need for answers to the frustrating desire to replace biblical statements with scientific explanations. It had the great value of supplanting the mysticism and vitalism that enveloped the biological sciences by emphasizing a pragmatic and experimental approach./// The two most important cornerstones for the Darwinian theories are: (1) all life forms are derived from a common origin; and (2) life form changes due to natural selection on the fittest forms randomly generated. However, many evidences indicate that life on Earth could not all originated from a single common ancestor and the evolutionary process for life is not random at all. Natural selection as a proposed force for evolution is an abstract concept and fitness as a proposed ultimate goal for evolution is an obscure term. Darwinian theories ignore the contribution of previous abiotic evolution on subsequent biotic evolution and basically separate the underlying abiotic evolution from the upper level biotic evolution./// A new evolution theory has been proposed which integrates all useful information into a cohesive framework. This new framework shows a historical link between abiotic and biotic evolution and highlights a simultaneous contribution of both abiotic and biotic factors into the origins and changes of life forms. By emphasizing this organic link between the abiotic and the biotic aspects of life formation and change it is hoped that complex and enigmatic biotic phenomena will be subjected to precise physico-chemical studies and thus be understood in simple and clear terms./// For more detailed informtion, please see Pioneer 1: 10-28, 2006 (http://im1.biz/displayimage.php?album=19&pos=4)///Shi V. Liu (SVL@logibio.com; http://im1.biz)