Darwin 200 Program: (re) discovering Darwin at a leisure pace
From London to Edinburgh, from Manchester to Cambridge, from Dorset to Kent, passing through Scotland and Wales,Great Britain is celebrating the bi-centennial anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of « The Origin of Species ». Artists, scientists and researchers, all are paying tribute to the co-founder of the famous theory of evolution in their own way and indeed from very different extraordinary angles, sometimes even quite unconventional ones. Also emerging are new avenues for exploration about his work, his controversial theories, his romance life, with implicitly the great influence that his work continues to exert in thinking and research today in all different areas…
Following intuitively in Darwin’s footprints
Like Sherlock Holmes, investigating all the facts, go ahead and sniff around London or in Edinburgh and if, you are a true curious soul and plagued by a thousand different questions when you think of Darwin, then the best remedy is to consult the Darwin 200 program website: Hasn’t Darwin revolutionized thinking on the same token as Newton, Einstein or Freud? Is the concept of evolution still at the heart of issues that are of interest to the world ? To gain a better grasp of these concepts and their multiple ramifications, then my advice to you is that you also visit the contemporary art exhibition called « The animal gaze », which looks at the complex relations between animals and man, on an ethical, political and aesthetical level.
An experimental and pragmatic approach
Throughout his lifetime, Darwin experimented, collected and compared data. The combination of his meticulous scientific work and innovative reflections lead him to formulate his thesis concerning the reason behind the incredible amount of diversity in the living world: «organisms that are the most fit, survive and reproduce and thus transmit their advantages to their offspring. This evolution is thus driven by natural selection ». Would you like to test that out yourself ? That is easy enough, thanks to the Evolution Mega lab, a passionate experience organized throughout Europe: first you observe snails in nature, then you record the data collected on the Internet, the researchers will study the way in which this cephalopod has adapted and evolved, whereas you will see the findings appear in real time. Interesting, isn’t it? Thus, at the end of a journey that mixes emotions and logic, you will have enriched your knowledge, in one word, you will have… evolved. New connections will have been established between your neurons: permanently or not? Transmissible or not? Can evolution also evolve ?… What do you think, Charles?
