Good morning. I'd like to tell you a story about a very long journey for a man, for a ship and for a scientific theory. The man was born 200 years ago tomorrow, on 12^th February 1809, his name was Charles Darwin. The ship was HMS Beagle and the scientific theory was evolution.

Charles Darwin started out with the aim of studying medicine and with that in mind, he attended Edinburgh University. This did not suit him however and he moved to Cambridge to study Theology. Before completing his studies, at the age of 22, he joined the crew of a survey ship, the HMS Beagle. He did not receive a salary for his role on the ship as a geologist, naturalist and companion to the Captain of the Beagle, Robert Fitzroy.

The ship took him around the world. The journey started in December 1831 in Plymouth and arrived back in Falmouth in October 1836. In all, the journey took four years and 9 months. Do not let the ship’s name confuse you, HMS Beagle was no comparison to the domestic dog the name suggests, it was in fact a 10-cannon warship.

The Beagle took Charles Darwin to the Galapagos Islands. These are a group of Islands roughly 600 miles into the Pacific off the West coast of Ecuador, South America. On the Galapagos Islands Darwin noticed slightly different forms of animals there, including giant tortoises, flightless cormorants, and differences between mockingbirds and between finches. At the time though he did not recognise his finches and after shooting them and salting them he did not even correctly record from where he had obtained them. It was only on his return to Britain that the finches were correctly identified by a colleague.

23 years later, in 1859, Darwin published “The Origin of Species by means of Natural selection”. The publication sold out, and has since never been out of print since. In his work Darwin sought to explain both evolution and diversity. Publication was prompted when Darwin learnt of another biologist, Alfred Russel Wallace who had developed very similar ideas. In writing “The Origin of Species” Charles Darwin may also have been driven to demonstrate the equality of all men as he hated the slave trade of his time. In fact evolution must mean that biologically speaking we are all related to all humans on earth. The phrase “all men are brothers” is a biological truth.

One of the central themes of Biology is the connection between biological structure and biological function. Biological structures seem to be made for their function – and indeed they are. Biologists have been trying to find out why this is so for many years. Evolution through natural selection also explains the diversity of life on the planet, organisms have changed and diversified in order to adapt to their environment. What is clear is that there is exists a relatedness between all living things, and with that knowledge there should exist a respect for all life that we humans should not forget. Charles Darwin in providing an explanation for these observations has become one of the cornerstones of Biology as we know it today.

(The above is the text of a talk by Dr Mark Martin, Head of Biology, to the school on Wednesday, February 11, 2009)