Many of UT's students and faculty came together to celebrate Charles Darwin's 200th birthday, last Thursday. 

This year marks the 12^th time UT has celebrated Darwin Day, the weeklong celebration of Darwin's life and publication of his most important work, On the Origin of Species.

The celebration is coordinated by volunteers affiliated with the ecology and evolutionary biology department. This year the festivities included speakers, a film series and an essay contest, which was won by Cameron Landers, a sophomore in arts and sciences.

The week concluded with a keynote speech by James Costa, the Robinson professor of biology at Western Carolina University, research associate at Harvard, and the director of the Highlands Biological Station.

In his speech he talked about the structure of On The Origin of Species, and how it reveals insights about Darwin's process of discovery and the presentation of those ideas to the public.

"What I would like to do today is to take you on a journey, and try to share with you Darwin's own intellectual journey, and try to understand the genesis of his ideas," said Costa.

Costa began with a history of Darwin, specifically his five-year journey on the Beagle, which provides a background for his later discoveries.

"You have to understand that Darwin is in his early twenties, just graduated.  He is not a seasoned naturalist," said Costa, "and yet he was trained educationally in the big questions of the day."

This was important in his discovery, argues Costa, but his ability to recognize subtle detail and his training in geology were also helpful.

I think that drawing, as I've done here, from Darwin's own words, and helping our student walk along the path that he took can be an effective way to approach the subject. -James Costa, Robinson professor of biology at Western Carolina University"It's long been a pervasive myth outside of biology and the history of science that Darwin set foot in the Galapagos Islands and suddenly said 'ah ha!' transmutation (evolution), but certainly that did not happen," said Costa.

It would be many more years of work and reflection before Darwin fully understood his observations and samples enough to create his theory of evolution. Costa also shows that Darwin's time at home after his journey was important in the creation of Darwin's theory.

"Very early on he glimpses that domestication, which after all is all about making varieties, may hold the key to understanding the nature of varieties," said Costa.

It was this understanding of artificial selection by breeders that helped Darwin develop the concept of natural selection, and evolution. Darwin chooses this insight as the beginning of Origins, because he saw its persuasive power, said Costa.

"He's sort of mentally though of how to structure the argument for when he is ready to present it to the world," said Costa, "'Open with domestication, then present my theory,' that's an inversion of the order of his own insights."

Costa argues that that this structure is important because it helps prove the theory. Domestication proves that pressures, in this case human, can cause variation among species. Then he uses his findings from the Beagle to show that this can naturally explain all the variation seen in nature.

Costa ended his speech with a call to action.

"I think we should take a page from Darwin's playbook. I think that drawing, as I've done here, from Darwin's own words, and helping our student walk along the path that he took can be an effective way to approach the subject."