ECU celebrates Darwin's 200th birthday

In honor of Charles Darwin's 200th birthday, ECU's Department of Biology hosted an open house and celebration of biodiversity this past Thursday.

Dr. Jeffrey Mckinnon, the chair of the Department of Biology, opened the ceremony by introducing Alan White, the dean of Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences.

White gave an overview of Darwin's "Origin of Species" and briefly discussed the book.

"Rather than me telling you about Darwin, I thought, let Darwin speak for himself," White said. "It's almost like going to a Shakespearean play. This is not the way we talk today. It's not written the way we write today. But you just have to let it wash over you."

White mentioned the famous Greek philosopher Aristotle's hints at the theory of evolution. "What's missing is a mechanism," White said. "Aristotle lacked a way of explaining why it is that we evolve. Darwin came up with a mechanism -- a way of explaining how this happened and that is natural selection."

From 1831-1836, Darwin embarked on a five-year journey aboard the HMS Beagle. He made significant finds all across South America and particularly on the Galapagos Islands in accordance with his theory. Twenty-three years later, he compiled his notes, wrote and published "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection" in 1859.

In his introduction to "Origin of Species," Darwin points out that we need to know "how" evolution happens and not just that it happens.

"In the intro, he's laying out his jargon for this idea of natural selection," White said.

White closed his discussion of Darwin with a reading of the last paragraph of Darwin's famous text. In these last words, Darwin reiterates his theory of evolution and notes that, "we have all been produced by laws acting around us."

Associate Professor Jason Bond then lectured on biodiversity and the future of life. Bond has become a well-known spider researcher of late and was a recipient of "the Colbert bump," a term used to describe the increase in popularity someone gets after appearing on "The Colbert Report."

Bond recently named a new species of spider after Colbert along with naming several other spiders after Angelina Jolie, Nelson Mandela and Neil Young.

"I've heard this stuff before," Nick Creech, a junior biology major said. "I took the class in 2007 and I was there with him when he was naming his spiders and when he was telling us about them. It's still quite interesting."

"It was encouraging to see that people can become excited about things like spider naming and about taxonomy [the practice of classification]," Bond said.

There are about 40,700 different species of spiders classified into 3,733 genera and placed into around 109 families.

"As you can see, there are a lot of spiders out there," Bond said. "If we eliminate spiders, we eliminate a significant amount of insect control. If we eliminate spiders we also eliminate a food source for other animals as well."

Bond spent the remainder of his lecture speaking about the general aspects of biodiversity, particularly the vast amount of species on Earth.

Bond strongly suggested that humans must do something about the loss of biodiversity. This is something that must come from a community effort and not solely the individual.

Bond also supported having biology as a required course for all levels, no matter what major and strongly encouraged people to give money to academic programs.

"Our planet is more diverse than most people imagine," Bond said. "We are losing many things that we don't even know exist. The diversity on our planet is both intrinsic to our health and quality of life," Bond said.

This writer can be contacted at news@theeastcarolinian.com.