Charles Darwin formulated natural selection as the mechanism by which animals and plants evolve. His five-year voyage on the Beagle provided empirical observations and specimens that led to this insight. Natural selection explains how heritable genetic variation and tiny differences accumulate across generations to produce complexity and the appearance of design without invoking a designer. Deep genetic connections link diverse organisms, from humans and gorillas to yeast, revealing common ancestry. Recognizing shared ancestry reframes ethical perspective by suggesting obligations toward the living world and prompting reconsideration of human responsibility for other forms of life.
Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection did more than explain evolution, it revealed how complexity can emerge without a designer. Nobel laureate Paul Nurse unpacks Darwin's insights, from the logic of tiny differences to the profound impacts these variations have on our understanding of life. Nurse explores the deep genetic connections linking all organisms, from humans to gorillas to yeast. This shared ancestry, he argues, reframes how we think about responsibility: If all life is related, what do we owe to the living world?
The idea that animals and plants might evolve is actually quite old. Even Aristotle had some thoughts about it. But particularly in the 18th century, there were a number of people who speculated looking at fossils and so on that animals and plants had evolved over time. But it took Charles Darwin in the middle of the 19th century to come up with a mechanism, evolution by natural selection.
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