Charles Darwin was Never
Completely Happy with His Theory of Evolution
Darwin's Doubts
Charles Darwin advanced a theory. In 1859 he published his book 'On
the Origin
of Species' in which he suggested the idea that one species could
arise
from another, and that the driving force behind this was 'natural
selection' so the individual most fitted to survive would survive.
Charles
Darwin was a scientist. He was fully
expecting his theory to be tested against scientific evidence by
other
scientists. Further than
that he continued thinking about the theory.
He was never completely happy with it.
To Darwin, the theory on
evolution by natural
selection did not explain
everything to his
satisfaction. In my article 'The Eye'
Darwin's explanation of the evolution of the eye is mentioned.
Darwin's
doubts were of many kinds.
One of his doubts concerned the mechanism of
inheritance. If, as was
usually accepted in those days, the offspring
will be a blend of the parents, so, for example, a person with one
tall
parent and one short one will be of medium height, how could taller
people evolve?
In fact, within Darwin's
own lifetime part of the
answer was found. Gregor
Mendel ( A monk) did some experiments with
peas. He found, for
example, that if he crossed a tall pea plant with a
short one, the offspring was not part way between the two heights. In
his first cross all the pea plants of the next generation were
tall.
Mendel found by further experiments that the 'short' characteristic
had
not been destroyed by being mixed with the 'tall' one, but was
still
there in the plant so it could still express itself in later
generations.
