The School of Life Sciences commemorated Darwin Day for the first time on February 12, 2024. Prof. T. Ramakrishna Rao, former Professor and Chair of the Department of Zoology at the School of Environmental Studies, University of Delhi, spoke at the event as a distinguished guest.
Prof. Rao highlighted the noteworthy contributions of Charles Darwin, Russel Wallace, and Patrick Matthew’s significant contributions to the theory of evolution. He brought out in detail how these three scholars independently discovered the most important mechanism namely Natural Selection, by which new species evolve.
Prof. Rao artfully navigated through the epochs of scientific exploration, highlighting their contributions but also emphasizing the persisting controversy over the primacy of the discovery. Prof. Rao pointed out how the concept of natural selection as an evolutionary mechanism works equally well as an explanation for processes that occur at the cellular level, which are the focus of modern biological study.
By tracing the theory’s intellectual lineage, the talk not only provided a rich understanding of its conceptual evolution, but also underscored the resilience and adaptability inherent in scientific theories as they evolve alongside our expanding knowledge of the natural world.
