Charles Darwin

Worldwide the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin is being celebrated this year

And for most people he is remembered for the phrase "the survival of the fittest" stated in his "Origin of Species"

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This phrase only appears twice in that book and the second time it is to regret and apologise for using the term

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In the same book he uses the word love ninety three times, yet in the index there is only one entry

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OK so what about that other famous entry "selfish genes" for which he is remembered?

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Yes it is there but he says it is a 'base principle, which accounts for the low morality of savages'

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So then what can be opposite from selfishness?

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We find it is morality and lo we find that he uses this over ninety times

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Over ninety times for love and morality versus one or two times for the two phrases for which he is globally remembered

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Something seems funny here

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Funny really because he goes out of his way in his second opus "The Descent of Man" to dwell upon the thrust of the moral sense and the impact of social psychological development on an evolving species

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Cooperation and moral behaviour being of paramount importance to our current state of evolution

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In the conclusion of this book he clearly states "Important as the struggle for existence has been and even still is, yet as far as the highest part of our nature is concerned there are other agencies more important

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'For the moral qualities are advanced either directly or indirectly much more through the efforts of habit, by our reasoning powers, by instruction, by religion, etc than through natural selection'

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So how do we manage to remember what he says about our earlier and more primitive needs and forget about his powerful thinking and statements about moral behaviour as a current need?

Never in our history has moral behaviour been more important

Never have we needed to remember this more than now

And so here we are celebrating a great thinker for the first part of his contribution to our understanding of species evolution and totally ignoring what he wrote about our evolutionary needs today!

Way to go!!

His books are a long read requiring attention and effort so yet again our laziness allows those who choose to present half the story to do so

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Time to recognise that the second part of his efforts are what we need today

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Yes let's remember him for this

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Or can it be that there are people out there who want us to focus only on the selfish base instincts?

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Surely not