Darwin's Predictions

By Peter Tyson
Posted 10.01.07
NOVA

Ahead of his time is putting it moderately for Charles Darwin. The father of evolution had conjectures that were only proved, or greatly substantiated, decades after his death in 1882, in some cases not until recently. Today, evidence that unequivocally supports his theory of evolution by natural selection, along with other surmises he had, comes from an array of scientific disciplines. Here, bone up on Darwin's most prophetic ideas.

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Over 150 years later, science continues to confirm most of Darwin's conjectures.

Sources

Carroll, Sean B. 2006. Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo. Norton, 2006.

Carroll, Sean B. 2007. The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution. New York: Norton.

Darwin, Charles. 1859. On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. London: John Murray.

Eldredge, Niles. 2005. Discovering the Tree of Life. New York: Norton.

Grant, Peter R. and B. Rosemary Grant. 2006. "Evolution of Character Displacement in Darwin's Finches." Science 14 July 2006 313: 224-226.

Petrie, Marion. 1994. "Improved Growth and Survival of Offspring of Peacocks With More Elaborate Trains." Nature, 1994, 371: 598-599.

Zimmer, Carl. 2001. Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea. New York: HarperCollins.

Credits

Images

(Darwin's tree of life sketch): from the 1837 First Notebook on Transmutation of Species by Charles Darwin
(elephant): Robert Hardholt/istockphoto.com
(finches): from the 1839 Journal of Researches Into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited During the Voyage of HMS Beagle Round the World, Under the Command of Captn. FitzRoy, R.N. by Charles Darwin
(DNA sketch): Francis Crick/Courtesy Wellcome Trust
(immortal genes): redrawn from The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution by Sean B. Carroll, Norton, 2006
(skeletons): from the 1863 Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature by Thomas Henry Huxley
(evolutionary tree): redrawn with permission from: Pascal Gagneux et al. 1999. "Mitochondrial Sequences Show Diverse Evolutionary Histories of African Hominoids." Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA ,Vol. 96, pp. 5077-5082, 27 April 1999