Darwin in South Africa
Today is the 150th anniversary of the publishing of Charles Darwin’s seminal On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. (This mouthful was changed for the sixth edition of 1872 to the familiar The Origin of Species.) So this anniversary marks one of the most important events in human history: the day faith in the supernatural was no longer required to explain human origins.
Darwin visited South Africa in 1836. The HMS Beagle was on its homeward journey and although the crew were keen to get home, Captain Fitzroy needed to exercise one of his interests and visit the newly opened South African Observatory. Darwin went ashore to “geologise”. The geology of the region interested him greatly. But ever the naturalist, he discovered a bug in the Cape, and it is named after him – Kaapiad darwini.
In all he spent 18 days in the Cape. By all accounts he was sick and miserable, the cold and rainy Cape winter not helping matters. He recorded in his diary that it was a rather desolate country. (In a later book describing his travels, he stated that “there was no country like South Africa” with regard to the large animals that could be found in the interior.)
The world renowned British astronomer Jon Herschel was living at the Cape at this time, studying the Southern sky. Herschel was fascinated by the Cape’s unusual indigenous flora and started speculating on how species evolved. Darwin and Captain Fitzroy were invited by Herschel to dinner and although the details of the conversation are unknown, the 26 year-old Darwin was said to be very impressed by Herschel’s ideas.
The city of Cape Town have erected a series of commemorative plaques to mark the route Darwin took during his stay. Here are images of one of the plaques, taken in Sea Point, Cape Town.
Click to view larger image.
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Einstein: religion is “childish superstition”
Few other historic figures have had their religious beliefs as thoroughly questioned as that of Albert Einstein. I suppose the problem is that he often used the word “God” in his conversations and writings. Of course, atheists would like to claim him as one but he consistently rebuffed this claim since he considered himself an agnostic. He did though reject the notion of a personal, interventionist god. So at most he was a deist agnostic. But even then, he emphatically pronounced that the god he talked of was “Spinoza’s God“, which broadly translates to god = nature.
The religious claims on Einstein is however a curious phenomenon. Why is it that the religious always seems to want the authority of scientists to effectively disprove science? People who believe in an entirely invisible realm without one iota of evidence ever have being produced – a concept in complete antipathy to science – somehow need a scientist to validate their fantasies. And the more famous the scientist, the better. Hence the continuous claims on Einstein as a believer in “god”.
A year before his death in 1955, Albert Einstein wrote a letter to philosopher Erik Gutkind after reading his book, ‘Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt’. If anyone is still undecided whether Einstein believed in a god, I would suggest this passage from the letter will clear up the matter:
The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. … For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstition. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong … have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything “chosen” about them.
Until his dying day, Einstein was in awe of nature, the universe. And like all people who know so much about it, he understood how little we know. This was his mystery, his “god”. As Walter Isaacson says in his book Einstein: His Life and Universe,
For some people, miracles serve as evidence of God’s existence. For Einstein it was the absence of miracles that reflected divine providence. The fact that the world was comprehensible, that it followed laws, was worthy of awe.
Norman Borlaug: modern hero
Who are our heroes? Is it someone who plays a mean lick on a guitar and lives a glamorous life? A model with inflated breasts who appears at charity events? An explorer accompanied by a TV crew enduring some pretty rough times? A journalist who bravely exposes a corruption scandal? An ordinary person who at great personal risk dives in to dangerous waters to save a child? A sportsman who achieves amazing physical feats but remains humble? A politician who risks her reputation to break a political logjam and end a conflict?
All of the above would qualify as heroes among varying groups. Some might even be recognised as such by their governments or international bodies. But what does it take to become a hero? How about someone who quietly save the lives of hundreds of millions of people? There is only one person who could claim that sort of hero status: Norman Borlaug.
If you’ve never heard of Norman Borlaug it’s probably because he lived a decidedly unglamorous, modest life. He was a brilliant scientist who is known as the Father of the Green Revolution. His work in developing a high-yielding variety of disease resistant wheat and improved varieties of other crop plants led to the feeding of legions of starving people. He started in Mexico, where he produced a fungus-resistant strain of wheat that allowed farmers to emerge out of poverty and starvation to selling surplus wheat. He achieved spectacular increases in crop yields in India and then the rest of Asia.
Borlaug won the Nobel peace prize in 1970. Never has such an award been more fitting. Penn & Teller call him the Greatest Human Being. Ever.
Dr Norman Borlaug died last week (September 12). He was 95 years old. Norman Borlaug was a modern hero.
“Norman E. Borlaug saved more lives than any man in human history,” said Josette Sheeran, executive director of the U.N. World Food Program. “His heart was as big as his brilliant mind, but it was his passion and compassion that moved the world.”
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