Vol. 38, No. 18

10-9-2008
By: Adam King

A year for Darwin

Ohio State celebrates 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species

Charles Darwin’s influence touched more than just scientific thought. He changed the way society looked at itself in every facet.

So with 2009 marking the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s publication of On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection — as well as his 200th birthday — a coalition of Ohio State faculty from across the spectrum led by the Colleges of the Arts and Sciences have put together a yearlong celebration to honor the father of evolutionary science.

“We hope to bring people together to recognize how important science is and Darwin’s influence on science and other fields,” said Bill Ausich, paleontology professor in the School of Earth Sciences and originator of the grassroots celebration. “From agricultural crops that are disease-resistant to understanding infectious diseases, how novels are written to understanding the history of life on Earth, Darwin’s work has been fundamental.”

A four-part lecture series will highlight “Darwin: The Growth of an Idea,” beginning with Luis Chiappe, curator and director of the Dinosaur Institute of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, talking about the origin of birds from dinosaurs on Oct. 17 at the Wexner Center.

From there, an array of events and displays, some already planned but which tie in to the tribute, will be available for the OSU community and the public to explore.

Mindy Wright, director of Arts and Sciences Community Partnerships, who is helping lead the tribute committee with Ausich, said such a variety of events was a way to help the OSU community expand its horizons.

“We hope people will consider attending events in ‘an interdisciplinary way’ so as to broaden their knowledge beyond their field’s borders,” Wright said.

From an artifact standpoint, perhaps the best place to begin is to view a first printing of Darwin’s Origin contained in the Columbus Museum of Art’s “Objects of Wonder from The Ohio State University” exhibit, which runs through Jan. 11.

Origin of Species continues to make its mark today, but back when it was originally published, it shook the foundations of standard thought in Victorian England. Novelists of the time even went so far as to build literary characters around Darwin’s theories, said Amanpal Garcha, an associate professor of English.

“Darwin often emphasizes how complexly interwoven nature is,” Garcha said. “In one passage, for instance, he shows that while no two animals seem ‘less concerned with each other than the cat and bee,’ in fact, bees’ population depends on mice, and mice’s population depends on cats, so the number of cats in a village determine the number of bees. His idea of complex relations as intrinsic to the natural world made novelists — George Eliot is a good example — become more attentive to the way that one character’s subtle actions or inactions can have wide-ranging effects on a whole group of people.

“Also, his vision of nature as operating according to a set of impersonal, inexorable laws made novelists — Thomas Hardy is a good example — create stories in which characters’ wills seem powerless against a somewhat pitiless world.”

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