From time to time it is good to talk about the evolution of a species instead of devolution into warring, rationalizing mad men.
I’ve been listening during commute times to the Origin of Species, Charlie Darwin’s famous book, read by an Englishman to give it proper authenticity. Fascinating stuff. Not the least fascinating to me is that contrary to the great howls from the fundamentasticly stupid, the book is less about science, in some esoteric sense, than about thousands upon thousands of observations thought together in this theory just being born. Not a page goes by when he doesn’t refer to observations made of ants, pigeons, auks, geese, mules. His touch stone throughout is: if plant and animal breeders can alter varieties and species to such good effect who are we to think that nature — which he sometimes refers to as the Creator– can’t do it better? Men after all can only alter what they can see — the wool of sheep, the plumpness of strawberries. Nature can alter internal organs — can change buoyancy sacks to lungs, can change flippers to feet and back again!
This alteration takes place only when some marginal change in one set of creatures gives it an advantage over others in the same eco-space (he doesn’t use that word.) Advantage in progeny, that is. Once the progeny of B take up the space occupied by the progeny of A, end of story: survival and extinction. He makes it quite clear that this is not simply a struggle of blood, tooth and claw but rather a slow-motion replacement over thousands of generations as minuscule changes in bodies work their way through the chain of life. Absolutely fascinating stuff.
He was not alone in working this all through. Besides his great competitor Alfred Russel Wallace, thousands of very astute botanists, geologists, paleontologists, animal breeders –many of them highly skilled amateurs– were observing the minutest details of their specialties, publishing, discussing and considering. What is the origin of species was one of the great topics of the day, not something dreamed up in a stuffy attic.
So, here is a marvelous article about the evolution of Baleen Whales — from being fearsome toothed creatures into the mammoth baleen strainers we know today. I think you’ll enjoy the read. At least get down to the family tree!
[Note: You can download a free copy of Origin of Species here, at the Gutenberg Project. There is also a free audio version but it was created with text-to-speech technology which, while amazing as a technology is still pretty hard to listen to. The rhythms are near natural, but just enough off –especially in a work filled with dimly familiar words — to make listening quite perplexing. I got my audio copy from audible.com which I paid for (not too much.) It’s about 18 CDs long and I’d be glad to share with anyone interested. ]