I studied evolution some time ago in my early university years, but it took me till now to go to the source and read the evolution Bible(I say with tongue firmly planted in cheek).

The first thing that struck me was just how much of the theory still stands, and just how little evolutionary theory has progressed since Darwin. There aren’t many areas of science where you can read a book published in the mid 19th century with so much still to offer to contemporary science.

The next thing that struck me was the immaculate precision, depth, and breadth of his evidence and logical arguments. It is a rare thing to see such perfectionist scientific methodology. He does not rest at simply finding one or two examples to prove something, but gives 20 or 30 and then says that he has more up his sleeve that won’t fit in the book. He then takes on board all the criticism directed at his theory, and actually turns it into evidence for why evolution by natural selection must be the case.

I was also struck by the humbleness of his achievements, and efforts to recognise other scientists in his field and other fields. If only Watson and Crick had given Franklin the same courtesy!

Darwin was also sufficiently confident in his evidence to point to holes in our knowledge of related fields necessary to explain natural selection. Pretty much all of these have since been filled in to perfectly complement the theory, namely:

1. The mechanism of inheritance — firstly Mendelian genetics. Legend has it that Mendel’s manuscript actually somehow found its way to Darwin’s desk and it never been read. Regardless, it took some time before the modern synthesis accepted that Mendel’s theory perfectly complimented Darwin. Secondly, the discovery of DNA as the physical embodiment of genes.

2. The age of the Earth. Darwin suspected that the few hundred thousand years at the time proposed as the age of the Earth was not sufficient to explain the rates of evolution required to arrive at today’s species. Now the estimate of a few billion fits nicely.

3. Continental drift, and more specifically the Gondwanaland origin of the southern continents. Darwin wanted to know how there could be common origin of plants from southern Africa, South America and Australia. Gondwanaland is the answer.

4. The intermediate form of the eye stalks of the flatfish. Only recently discovered, explained here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__JFFHxkTY8

5. Better methods for estimating historic climate change and the age of fossils.

Darwin briefly mentions in his concluding chapter that he underestimated the variation which does not come from natural selection and appears to occur somewhat spontaneously. This has more recently been attributed to random effects including founder effects, bottlenecks etc, and in no way contradicts natural selection, but rather complements it.

Darwin stayed comfortably away from human ancestry, but mentioned it as a field for interesting future research. With the recent discovery of Homo floresiensis (the ‘hobbit’ people found in the island of Flores and Indonesia), this is clearly still an incomplete picture.

Another area that has since been filled in a bit is the mechanism of sexual selection, although this is still up for grabs with a number of competing hypotheses (the runaway hypothesis, the handicapped hypothesis etc).

He also saw extinction as a natural consequence of the ‘economy of nature’, whereas these days we think of it more in terms of unintended human impact on the world and the consequences of anthropogenic climate change.

I would say that if you want an update on evolutionary theory up to more recent times (for whatever level of previous understanding of evolutionary theory you have), check out Richard Dawkins’ the Blind watchmaker. there is definitely something special though, about reading historical scientific texts, especially seeing how they came to a conclusion without the benefit of the data available today, that still holds solid after all these years.

You also have to admire his tenacity for collecting so much data himself in difficult circumstances, fighting seasickness and years away from his family and familiar surroundings. Okay, yes, he got to travel the world, but without the benefit of in-flight movies and reclining seats.