Mr. Charles Darwin had the gall to ask...

Today is Charles Darwin's 198th birthday. But he's not still alive; that'd be a record.

I've talked about Darwin at least a couple of times before. However, I just thought I would call brief attention to the significance of his contributions to modern biology.

You see, Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection established something for biology that the other sciences lacked (and are still lacking): a great unifying theory. A theory with the predictive power to explain and make sense out of a great number of heretofore poorly-understood phenomena. Physics does not yet have a theory that does so; nothing has been able to confidently unite the physics of the very, very small (quantum mechanics) with that of the very, very large (Einsteinian/Newtonian laws). And since physics so directly feeds most of the other branches of scientific inquiry (chemistry, astronomy/cosmology, etc) none of them have found a unified theory. Only biology has this distinction.

Does this mean we understand all there is to understand about biology? No, absolutely not. Does it mean that Darwin's theory has not been added to, redacted, or otherwise modified since it's proposal? Again, the answer is no. The significance of evolution's unifying capabilities merely relates to the fact that, as far as we are aware, its ramifications extend to all life, not just on Earth, but everywhere it might exist (provided that it propagates similarly by use of self-replicating molecules). It has the power to convincingly explain not only simple microorganisms, but complex ones such as you and me.

So today, eat some fish with legs for dinner, grow a long white puffy beard, develop a mystery illness that regularly keeps you down for much of your adult life, but most of all remember the man who best demonstrated how irrevocably tied together we all, plants and animals alike, are. Happy Darwin Day to you all!