The Origin of Species completed a scientific revolution

Dr..Arwen, although never an atheist, with Origin of species He completed a scientific revolution that began in the Renaissance against creationism.

Just as first Copernicus, and then Galileo and Kepler removed the Earth from the center of creation and placed it as another planet in the constellation of the Universe; Charles Robert Darwin – says Dr. Anna Barahona, a researcher at UNAM – also separated man from the center of creation and treated him as the only other species on Earth.

Still in the nineteenth century, in many countries, especially England, it was blindly believed, according to the Judeo-Christian tradition, that a god had created all living things, says the researcher from the Faculty of Science.

In order not to contradict this faith-based belief, The origin of the man Posted yetOrigin of speciesbeing that chapter of the great work of evolutionism.

Darwin, fearing the reaction of the church to his radical ideas, took more than 20 years to present his theory of evolution. In 1836 he already had all the information to develop and maintain. However, he submitted it until 1858. A year later, on November 24, his On the Origin of Species went on sale, with a circulation of 1,250 copies. On the same day the first edition was sold out.

Ten years later, in 1869, the last revised and expanded edition of Darwin was published, which included responses to criticisms of his work during that decade, says Barahona in “Darwin and Its Significance in the Grounding of Scientific Thought,” an article published in the journal Darwin. By Digital University Journal (June 10, 2009).

current theory

His Theory: The Evolution of Species Through Natural Selection, 161 years after its publication, is still valid, Barahona confirms, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Laureate

In 1859, this theory and mechanism caused an uproar, because it contradicted the principle of fixation, which held that species were created and not changed. It was “fixed”.

Darwin did not pioneer the idea of ​​a common ancestor for these species and their change over time (in 1794 they were bred by his grandfather Erasmus Darwin. Zoology Then in 1809, Lamarck in his Zoological philosophy), but he was the first to develop the theory of evolution, which posits that organisms change over time through a mechanism of their evolution and called it “natural selection”.

Cautiously accepted by some scientific communities, the mechanism of natural selection caused controversy until the beginning of the 20th century.

Later, the introduction and development of genetics (Mendelian principles and chromosome theory of heredity) would give reason to natural selection as a mechanism that fully explains the evolution of species over time.

Today Barahona says it is universally accepted. Natural selection is the main, though not the only, mechanism of evolutionary change. Genetics, mathematical models, molecular biology, and other disciplines (paleontology and biogeography) have provided solid evidence and data in support of Darwinian theory.

The art of doing science

For the first time, thanks to UNAM, it has been published in Spanish Origin of species (The final version revised by Darwin) in two volumes, Nuestros Clásicos Collection No. 13.

In 2009, on the occasion of the bicentenary of Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species, the international symposium “Darwin, the Art of Doing Science” was held in Mexico.

The symposium was organized by the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, Germany, as well as by El Colegio Nacional and researchers from UNAM (Faculty of Sciences, Institute for Philosophical Research and Institute for Geology).

In 2011, the papers presented at the said symposium were published by the Faculty of Science in Darwin’s book, The Art of Doing Science, which you can consult for free on the site. Books.unam.mx