Día de Darwin: Celebrando el legado de Charles Darwin en 2025

Darwin’s Day is celebrated annually on February 12 to commemorate the birth of English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809-1882) with outreach and commemorative activities held worldwide and to Reflect and act on the progress of science and spread his scientific legacy on evolution, inspiring people worldwide on the principles of intellectual courage, perpetual curiosity, scientific thinking, and real hunger in Charles Darwin.

A Prolific Life

Charles Darwin was born on February 12, 1809 into a wealthy family, as his father was a renowned doctor. In fact, young Darwin’s early studies were in medicine, though after dabbling in various subjects, he ended up specializing in natural history.

He was a collector of beetles (a trendy hobby in his youth), studied geology, natural theology (which seeks to demonstrate through tangible and natural evidence), learned taxidermy from a former slave, and was eventually invited to join the HMS Beagle voyage as a sampling collector.

The Beagle was a scientific ship whose objective was to carry out mapping work along the South American coast, a daunting task that would take almost five years to complete. During this journey where Darwin meticulously documented, it was a true reevaluation for the naturalist who embarked at just 22 years old.

Despite battling seasickness to balance on the boat, Darwin conducted consciousness studies, noting both the specimens he found and the land they were on. This led him to first conceive the idea that the same species could undergo certain changes based on where they lived.

Upon his return, fame was anticipated, but for Darwin, his priority was to properly catalog the samples he brought back. Building on his notes and with invaluable collaboration from other scientists, he began delving into an evolutionary theory that would challenge the prevailing Lamarckian ideas. Meanwhile, he authored several treatises, publications, and three books on geology.

Lamarck posited that evolution was linear, meaning an animal could «elevate» evolutionarily from a lower step to a higher one, while Darwin asserted that there actually existed what he termed an evolutionary tree and that no animal could be considered more or less evolved than another.

Upon completing the book in which he would present the conclusions of his studies, he received letters from another naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, who explained he had been working on a very similar theory to his for over 20 years. Darwin published both Wallace’s letters and his own conclusions, co-authoring The Theory of Evolution.

«On the Origin of Species» was published in 1859. Its opening paragraph is eloquent and reads as follows:

«As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form.”

In this book, he barely touched on the evolution of humans, so Darwin continued to work on this. In 1871, «The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex» was published, where the author provides various evidence that all human beings are of one species, among all those that make up the animal kingdom, beyond the differences of sex, race, and culture in each individual.

Global Celebrations

Since Darwin passed away at the age of 73, tributes to his figure and the numerous contributions he made to science have not ceased. When the first century of his birth was commemorated, Cambridge welcomed over 400 scientists who gathered to honor and discuss his work and the latest discoveries of the time. In New York, a bust of the naturalist was unveiled, and in New Zealand, a Darwin celebration took place.

From there, numerous celebrations were held in different parts of the World in honor of Darwin, his books, his theories, and his invaluable contributions. By the mid-1990s, the Darwin Day celebrations coincided with his birthdate. This idea garnered many followers among student communities and teacher campuses, later becoming institutionalized worldwide.

The purpose of this commemoration is for people not only to be aware of the life and work of these periods due to ignorance but also to avoid misinterpretations.

It is crucial to differentiate the idea of surviving to the fittest, from the most powerful, as they do not always align. The fittest will be the one who, despite the vicissitudes of the environment they live in, can procreate and pass on their genes to the next generation. Ultimately, through successive and beneficial mutations, their descendants could lead to a new species better adapted to their environment.