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The Breaking Science team come to BBC Radio Five Live to break open this week's science stories.

Darwin and evolution

Celebrating the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth - and considering his work: Darwin and evolution.

Why is Charles Darwin commonly held up as the father of the theory of evolution? Ben Valsler spoke to Darwin biographer Jim Moore, and he began by asking him what drove Darwin to formulate the concept of evolution in the face of what was, initially, profound religious and political hostility to his ideas.

Jim Moore: Darwin was driven by different things at different times, just like all of us. He was complex; he changed; he became more conservative generally speaking as he got older, but if you mean what drove Darwin to become an evolutionist, one has to say it has to be something as powerful as the forces that were ranged against evolutionists.

When Darwin is less than 30 years old, he comes back from travelling around the world – most of it was on land, not at sea – but he gets home, and within weeks, probably a few months, he’s become an evolutionist. Why does he do that? It’s a bad career move, and in our new book, Darwin’s Sacred Cause, Adrian Desmond and I say that that powerful drive that overcame the social stigma of being an evolutionist was Darwin’s radical belief in the unity of all life.

That common descent unites every species, the human race as well as all races of animals and plants, and that leads him to a powerful image that was part of the ideological foundations of the anti-slavery movement. The notion of a family tree of humanity for traditional Christians rooted in Adam and Eve as the father and mother of humankind. Darwin takes it a step further and unites everyone and says that it’s our arrogance to believe that we’re not related to animals; it’s the arrogance of the slaveholder lording over his slaves whom he likes to regard as another species.

Charles Darwin. Image: Jupiterimages Corporation.

Ben Valsler: This may well have been the driving force but still, it was a long time before he published. It was a long time before these ideas actually made it out there. Was there a tempering force as well that made him look for all the right evidence and made him make sure he could prove this before he would publish?

Jim: Darwin kept his thoughts to himself to begin with. He was in the process of becoming involved in the Royal Society as secretary of the Geological Society of London. He was welcomed to the inner sanctum of elite natural history. His sponsors were Cambridge clergymen, professors; he had a grant from the Whig Chancellor of the Exchequer, a huge amount of money to publish his Beagle research. He was a young man on the make. He was pushing all the right buttons, he was going all the right places, and yet he carried this terrible secret in his private notebooks. He needed a theory, and he began calling his speculations ‘my theory.’

That was his project, ‘my theory,’ and towards the end of 1838 he works out what we now call natural selection. By 1839, when he’s getting married and having children, he’s developed that, and he knows within three years – he leaves London, he takes shelter in the countryside – he knows he’s onto something really big. It’s going to change the course of the history of science if he can convince people.

Now, at that stage you don’t go public. You take every precaution that’s necessary to convince people beforehand that what you carry with you is true. It’s not disreputable; it’s the answer to the mystery of the diversity of life on earth.

So, he commits himself for the next 17 years, that’s sort of 20 years in all since he devises natural selection, to answering in advance every conceivable objection that the heavyweights of science in his day could bring against what he’s doing, and that leads him into huge research projects. And finally he gets around to putting pen to paper and he plans a huge book, maybe a half million words in three volumes which no one would read, and in the middle of all of that, you know, he gets outed by this guy named Wallace, everyone knows this story, Darwin has to condense his work into something which he entitles On the Origin of Species.

Ben: Do you think the pressure of having these other younger researchers formulating very, very similar theories based on very similar principles, Wallace was looking at series of islands much like Darwin had, do you think this forced him to make some concessions in his work?

Jim: Darwin was not aware that Wallace was working on a theory, until the paper arrived in June 1858. Darwin felt safe in his non-competitive ecological niche as a theoriser of evolution. He knew that all the other theorisers were discredited or spoke ill of. He wasn’t like them. He wasn’t telling anybody what he was like. He still believed he had an inside track on natural selection.

Now, what did he do with that theory once he knew that Wallace was onto the same thing? He believed Wallace was onto the same thing. Darwin read the paper in haste; we can all see now that they are not talking about the same thing in the same way – Wallace rejects the selection analogy for example. Absolutely basic analogy with domestic animal breeding, Wallace absolutely rejects it, always rejects it. So there’s a fundamental difference between Darwin and Wallace to begin with.

I can’t see that Darwin gives up anything. I’d have to think about it for a while before I gave you a technical answer, but it seems to be that what Wallace says and does over the next 10 to 15 years makes Darwin more attached to what he always thought. Wallace did push him hard, and Darwin said once, “It terrifies me to disagree with you,” and that was public hyperbolae, but this unprepossessing sort of guy, who left school when he was 13, he didn’t go to Cambridge. I mean he would have, Wallace would have joined The Open University and he’d have got a fine PhD, had there been an Open University in 1840.

This was an incredibly bright and underused talent, you know, and Darwin knew that. You know, they were socially chalk and cheese, and yet this guy was dorking him, and Darwin took preventative measures, hedging about his theories to make sure, obvious example is sexual selection, Darwin is so goaded by Wallace, because Wallace doesn’t believe that male competition and female choice causes sexual dimorphism in nature.

Darwin expands his work on sexual selection so two thirds of his book, on ‘The Descent of Man’, and Selection in Relation to Sex is the rest of the title, two thirds of that book is about birds and bees and pigeons and furry mammals before he ever gets to humans. Typical Darwin, he has to do the whole panoply of nature to prove that sexual selection is right and (brackets) Wallace is wrong.

Ben: And finally, what was it about Darwin that means that he stands out now? There were other people researching similar things that may not have hit exactly the same theory, but Darwin really was the man that stands out as being the father of evolution.

Jim: Evolution needs a father, as Steve Jones would say. Newton is pictured by Blake’s geometer outside the British library on Euston Road - unfairly perhaps. You think of Einstein. You think of Einstein as a brain, you know. You might think of Freud as being something really slippery. But Darwin’s a grandpa! He has a beard. He has a big family. He’s wealthy. He lives in the country. He’s contented. He cut the image of what it was like to be a gentleman of science in his day, and he still does.

Darwin is cuddly. Apart from the fact that this old man is not reliable with children because he teaches them falsehoods, some people say, this old gent is like anybody’s grandpa. You could really warm to the guy.

Now I’ve studied Darwin for many, many, many years, and I’m not particularly enamoured of him. The more I’ve got to know him, I suppose the more I’ve got to know anybody, the less I’ve been enamoured of him.

Listen to the whole programme, originally broadcast on BBC Radio Five Live, March 2009.

Find out more

Explore the reality behind the man and his theories: Darwin

Watch Jim Moore talking about his discovery of Darwin’s motivation

Life, a recent BBC nature documentary series, is a showcase of the diversity of the natural world and the extraordinary behaviour of living things. It seems that nature never fails to amaze the curious investigator; be it far, close or even underfoot.

“We know more about the movement of celestial bodies than about the soil underfoot.” - Leonardo da Vinci.

Yes, underfoot is the soil I want to talk about, which one of my professors fondly refers to as The Book of Nature. He would say, “Open The Book of Nature and read… here and there a chapter might be incomplete or you may not understand, but you can always learn about the past, the present and the future.” Indeed, my limited reading has found a lot of interesting chapters…

What is soil?

Technically defined, soil is a "natural body comprised of solids (minerals and organic matter), liquid, and gases that occurs on the land surface. It is characterized by distinguishable horizons and or the ability to support rooted plants in a natural environment".

In a much more ecological way, it is the basic structure that supports life’s primary producers, i.e. plants. It does this as a result of its unique capability to act as a reservoir of nutrients/water and then to supply those intermittently to the plants - very much like a prudent bank.

This is not the soil’s only role; it also acts as a foundation for infrastructure and as a cornerstone in the health of ecosystems, for example, by locking pollutants and harbouring ultimate decomposers. As such, it is considered as one of the three most vital natural resources, alongside air and water.

Why care for soils?

Knowledge of the soil's physical, chemical and biological make-up is important for various disciplines. For example, nutrient levels are important for crop production, soil shear strength is crucial for engineering construction, and its structure could also be a deciding factor for football pitches! It also has more exotic uses, such as a beauty accessory (see the intricate hair-styling of the Hamer of Ethiopia, for instance).

In addition to their functional roles, soils have been part of our life and culture in many ways. A recent book, Soil and Culture by Edward R. Landa and Christian Feller, pays tribute to their impact from visual arts to religion and from archaeology to disease and warfare, and as a further example, many states in the U.S. have a specific soil that is legislatively established as a ‘state soil’, just like a state bird or flower.

What is the status of soils today?

Like most of earth’s resources, soils in all parts of the world are under threat. From the physical problem of compaction to erosion, and from salinity to pollution, are increasingly degrading our soils, with negative effects on ecosystems, economy and human health. In addition, global warming threatens to release carbon trapped in soil's organic matter, exacerbating climate change and having grave consequences for life on earth.

What's being done?

As the concern on soils has come to the forefront of public awareness, national and international bodies are moving towards legislation and action. For example, the UK government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) recently published a revised strategy on soils.

Hilary Benn, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, explains the importance of caring for soils.

Take it further

Educate yourself and others with the Soil Science Educational Resource.

Join surveys, for example, the OPAL national soil and earthworm survey.

Support those who are working to improve soils situation, such as the Soil Association.

Open University courses

Neighbourhood nature

Environment: journeys through a changing world

Other links

BBC Life

British Society for Soil Science

International Union of Soil Sciences

European Union Soil Thematic Strategy

About the author

Dr Yoseph Araya is a plant ecologist and associate lecturer at the Open University. He works on the biology and conservation of South African fynbos vegetation. Environmental education and the role of the public in research is one of his key interests.

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Digital Planet: BBC World Service

Let us guide you through a world of digital revolutions around this Digital Planet.

It's now been exactly a year since I arrived in northern Ethiopia with Voluntary Service Overseas to start a placement at Mekelle University. Based in the Computer Science department, I'm developing and training staff in e-learning and advising on general IT policy and strategy. Throughout the last year the university has been undergoing a period of huge change - with rapid expansion in student numbers, restructuring of the colleges and departments, and an ambitious plan to modernise and develop overall.

A computer lab in Mekelle University, Ethiopia.
[Image © copyright Terri O'Sullivan, some rights reserved]

Work and life is very different to living in Northampton and working at The Open University. It's certainly taken time to adjust to the new organisation, culture and way of working. After arriving with high expectations and a keenness to get moving with the job, work felt slow in the first few months and I didn't feel like I was getting anywhere. However, everything has fallen into place recently. Now I have built up relationships and got to know the working practices, things have really started moving – and the time spent getting to know my colleagues, in particular, is really paying off. Their support and assistance has been vital; without them guiding me through, it would have been extremely difficult to achieve anything.

It also takes a while to get used to the network and power interruptions. The university is fortunate to have a 2Mb broadband connection, which, I believe, is one of the fastest connections in this part of Ethiopia – but we do have to share this between over a thousand staff. We're currently on a “power-sharing” schedule, where, during the working week, the power is off every other day. As you can imagine, this makes conducting IT training difficult. With scheduled powers cuts, you can work around this, but there are also other times when the power will go off for several hours without notice. Recently, some areas of the university have been supplied by backup generators, so this helps greatly, providing you are using the right computer labs. We're hoping this situation will improve once the rainy season is over and the hydroelectric dams are full.

The university has recently started a partnership with Alcala University in Spain to work with the Engineering and Health Sciences colleges, writing an e-learning training programme for selected tutors to attend over the coming semester. During the course, tutors will develop online activities for their students to take part in. Since student access to computers can be very limited, we're building two new computer labs - one for each college - so the students can participate in these activities. As this is pilot project, we're testing out installing thin client labs and using open source software. This is a huge contrast to the usual computer lab setup here, which consists of desktop PCs running Windows. At any given time up to three-quarters of the PCs may be out of action for a number of reasons, commonly due to virus infection, but also hardware failure. The labs then take a small army of IT technicians trying to keep as many PCs up and running as possible. We're hoping that the architecture of the thin client labs will vastly reduce the amount of support time needed, as well as being a more scalable solution, with the added bonus that it will be cheaper to increase the number of terminals.

Although most of my current work is involved in coordinating and managing these new labs and assisting with writing the training course material, I also have a few side projects to maintain. One of these involves showing staff from the Health Sciences college how to use GPSs to map the community health centres and health workers in the rural areas. The college has a number of projects in these areas measuring the impact of government schemes such as the Health Extension Programme - which gives healthcare training to local people so they can better support their communities.

Despite, or perhaps because of the problems, the sense of achievement is much greater than my work back in the UK. Knowing that you are making a real, though perhaps small, difference makes dealing with the life here all the more worthwhile. The Ethiopian people are very friendly, generous and appreciative, making it a highly rewarding and enjoyable experience.

How you can get involved

In my opinion, simply supplying more computers and hardware doesn't really help get to the core of the problem of IT development here: although more hardware will never be refused, IT training and staff development plays a greater role in development. Many staff - not only in the university but also teacher training colleges - lack the IT skills to maintain and make best use of the equipment available to them. Even computer science students arrive having hardly used a computer so a lot of time is spent developing basic skills, including how to operate word processors and spreadsheet packages. As has been reported elsewhere, viruses are a huge problem, damaging the tools that could help Ethiopia to develop. Training staff in how to install and, crucially, update their anti-virus software therefore has a significant impact.

My volunteering here is something I wish I’d done sooner. As a software developer by background, I'd often put off applying as I was unsure I had the skills needed to work in a developing country. It is a big commitment to give up a well-paid, comfortable job in the UK, but I haven't looked back. Not only have I been sharing my existing IT skills, but I have also developed new ones in terms of training, hardware and network maintenance. I'd definitely recommend other IT professionals to come and experience living and working in a developing country.