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Asked by louiise to Ed, Katie, Sam, Steve, Vera on 15 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by safia.
Question: if you could have a one to one with Darwin what would you ask him?
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Sam Tazzyman answered on 13 Jun 2011:
Darwin was worried that extreme things like a peacock’s tail might be difficult for the theory of evolution by natural selection to explain, because a peacock with a big tail is easier for a tiger to catch than a peacock with a small tail would be. I would tell him that he needn’t have worried: his theory can explain the peacock’s tail perfectly well, because although peacocks with small tails would be able to escape from tigers, they wouldn’t get to breed, so the genes for small tails get lost from the population. Only the peacocks that peahens find attractive get to breed, so genes for big flashy tails remain, even though these tails make it harder to stay alive.
I’d ask him if he could think of a reason why the females in some species mate with several males even though they only need to mate with one to fertilise all of their eggs. It’s something that scientists still debate – are the females trying to get a variety of fathers for their offspring to hedge their bets? do they get some other benefits from the males with whom they mate?
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Katie Marriott answered on 13 Jun 2011:
I would ask him for a job! He travelled the world and saw so much and learnt so much about the way animals evolve I think it would be really fun to work with him.
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Steven Daly answered on 13 Jun 2011:
Darwin was a member of a club at Cambridge University called the Gourmet Club where they tried to eat unusual animals that normally wouldn’t be eaten. He ate a great many weird and wonderful animals to see what they tasted like, including owls, hawks, armadillos and puma.
I would quite like to ask him why he did that!
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Vera Weisbecker answered on 13 Jun 2011:
I’d ask him how on earth he summoned the patience to study cirripeds (barnacles!!) intensively for eight years in a row. I sometimes think that I need a lot of patience for what I do but that just takes the cake.
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Ed Morrison answered on 15 Jun 2011:
Loads of things. I would probably ask him about his religious views as Darwin seemed to change his mind about what he believed. But I would like to know if he thinks it’s possible to believe in evolution and God (because I do).
But I would also ask him about how he thinks evolutino has shaped the way human beings think. This is a question that took about 100 years after Darwin for people to answer.
Comments
Katie commented on :
Wow I have learnt something new today (several times in fact)! I wonder what Armadillo taste like. I have Pork Scratchings in mind!
Steve commented on :
Duck, he said!
kimgreenhalgh commented on :
I would like to ask him how it felt to propose his evolution theory at a time when all people believed and knew was religious explanations for human life.
Steve commented on :
I think that is a very good question, because it can’t have been at all easy for him. The same is somewhat true still today, there are many people who still have to stand up and defend evolution against criticism from a minority of strongly religious people.
I find that really interesting, because although I am not religious and do not believe in a God, I would actually find that something like evolution would make me more likely to believe in a God. Evolution is such an amazing process, I like to think that God would have thought so too!
Sam commented on :
I agree that it’s a good question, and we also should remember that Darwin himself held religious views, at least when he was younger, though it seems those views weakened as he aged. He described himself as an agnostic when he was older (an agnostic is someone who doesn’t think it’s possible to answer the question of whether there is a God).
Vera commented on :
Apparently he was scared out of his wits because he knew that society might hate his theory. In fact, it took him around 10 years to summon the courage to publish it. In the end, he only did it because another scientist called Arthur Wallace threatened to beat him to the game. When Darwin realized that Wallace had worked out the same idea of evolution as he, he decided to have his own paper on evolution published alongside Wallace’s. So, by publication date, Darwin’s Theory of natural selection is as much Wallace’s, although most people have forgotten about this. Poor Wallace, really!
Vera commented on :
Argh, Alfred NOT Arthur Wallace. Where’s my brain today…
Sam commented on :
Poor Wallace indeed, although he himself was a big fan of Darwin’s theory. He at one point described himself as being “more Darwinist than Darwin”, and even wrote a book called “Darwinism” about evolution by natural selection.
Katie commented on :
Science and religion is always a good combination for a discussion. So many views and extremely interesting whether you are religious or not!
Glo commented on :
Too great a question to stay in my own zone…I’d ask, “Did you steal Wallace’s idea?”
Vera commented on :
Great idea, Glo! I suppose he’d show you the door though.
Sam commented on :
It might be interesting to ask him how he felt that his idea was so often misunderstood and misrepresented, despite the fact that he wrote very clearly. And also how he felt at being drawn as a monkey in lots of cartoons in newspapers of the time!
Vera commented on :
He loved the monkey drawings and collected the cartoons.