Dr. Anelli came to speak with us on Charles Darwin’s life, influences, and how the movie “Creation” accurately and somewhat inaccurately portrays Darwin. Darwin’s theories on evolution were revolutionary. His publishing of them defied the popular theories of the time. In the movie “Creation” we see Darwin’s struggles to write and publish his book. As Dr. Anelli talked with us we realized just how much courage it took for Darwin to fully express his ideas of evolution in “On the Origin of Species.”
Darwin was influenced by those that came before him such as Hutton, Cuvier & Brongniart, Lyell, and Parley. All these men though in different fields were very influential in the publishing of his theory. He pulled in the points made by Cuvier & Brongniart, Lyell and by extension Hutton; which especially believed that in order for the Earth to have formed these rock layers it much be very old. By believing this, the popular theory of Natural Theology was shown to not be entirely true. Darwin was aware of these works as well as many others and they help shape the writing of his book. Dr. Anelli pointed out the correspondence with many other scientists and scholars through letters now published online also helped Darwin immensely in the formation of his ideas.
Many great points were made by Dr. Anelli. One key point that sticks out to me is that by studying the history of evolutionary biology we can also see how these ideas came about in that time period. Another great point was that evolutionary biology is continually being studied today such as the Nobel Prize winners in 2017 for their research into molecular mechanisms controlling circadian rhythm. Overall, I believe this was a great talk. She was very informational and helped to paint a wider picture around Darwin and how the theory of evolution came about.
I agree with you, Caleb, that seeing Darwin as a product of his time was a strength of Dr. Anelli’s talk. Many of the ideas of evolution were laid out by others (deep time, extinction, etc), but he was someone in the right place at the right time (and the right personality) to synthesize them into one coherent theory.