The Ambassadors Magazine - January 2009

London Sketch Book of Celebrities, 1874.
The artist was Faustin Betbeder

February 12, 2009 marks the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin, the natural selector and influential scientist. His Theory of Evolution, described in the pre-DNA era, has caused trouble for many decades and shows no sign of stopping anytime soon. Some consider Darwin's dangerous idea destroyed mankind as the pinnacle of all creation, and knocked God, the creator, right out of the sky. Others now accept the fact that the human race evolved through cons of natural selection and that any differences that may have evolved between different groups of humans are trivial. It's culture that drives human development now!

A 2009 book written by population geneticist Dr. Henry Harpending, and physicist-anthropologist Dr. Gregory Cochran entitled, The 10,000 Year Explosion is the latest contribution to this debate. The book is a mix of well-established science and over-simplified speculation, where the authors argue that culture and biology are deeply intertwined, each influencing the other. Agriculturalism probably rewarded traits like patience, planning, selfishness, and conferred partial immunity against infectious diseases caused by livestock. Living in big population groups helped people in the Old World develop their defences against disease, while isolated populations who experienced very little infectious disease had no immunity from them. They were defenceless against European germs.

Charles Darwin's paternal grandfather was an early investor in Britain's canal-building boom and his physician father was a successful mortgage lender. His mother was a member of the wealthy Wedgwood clan for pottery fame. He married Emma Wedgwood, a first cousin. Each received £10,000 as a wedding gift. Through inheritances, he likely added another £45,000, which made him wealthy in the mid-1880s. By 1881, his fortune had grown to about £282,000. His earnings from his published works totalled about £70,000, the rest came from investment income.

The scientific genius, who gave the world the theory of natural selection and one of the great thinkers of how things change, has been tied to everything from the evolution of modern capitalist economies to asset management, hedge fund trading models, and stock selection. Nowadays, as the world marks the 200th anniversary of his birth, financial firms fighting for their survival, the world remembers Darwin the businessman with books such as, Financial Darwinism: Create Value or Self-Destruct in a World of Risk," written by Leo Tillman and forwarded by 2006 Nobel Laureate in Economics, Edmund Phelps.

Interestingly, one US mutual fund is marketing a Darwin portfolio of health sector stocks with this promise, "similar to Darwin, the advisor closely observes companies within the healthcare industry that adapt to demographic trends that...can be exploited for shareholder gain." Last February, in the front page of the Globe and Mail's Report on Business, Brian Milner, raised the question, "But before looking at what the real Charles Darwin might do in today's market chaos, it is worse examining what he actually did during his lifetime."

Two centuries later, the debate surrounding Darwin's theory of evolution is still raging on in all areas of knowledge and disciplines. Twenty books were published in the last year alone that tackle Darwin's work. Some attempt to assert the viability of his observations and justify them with modern-day research and anecdotes, others try to refute it using theories of intelligent design and other scientific theories. The following four titles challenge Darwin's idea of natural selection using several methodologies, from biochemical examinations to a critique of Darwin's honesty, to a deconstruction of the relationship between of selfishness and sex.

Some of the titles have come to the defence of Darwin's legacy by showcasing the utility of his theory of natural selection from everyday life to explaining economic conditions in the global financial market. Other books have tried to bridge the gap between Darwinism and communities of faith whose creation stories appear to be at odds with evolution. Additionally, many literary volumes have been published that appropriate evolutionary theory as a subplot or as a manifestation of a character's persona.

Agree with him or not, two centuries later, Darwin remains one of the most influential thinkers of the last millennium, someone who revolutionized the natural sciences with his ideas that continue to instigate volatile discussions in all societal circles to this day.