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Gerry Garbulsky: It is the year 1837,
our next speaker is 28 years old.

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He is just back from 
an incredible voyage,

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that would later change
our conception of life.

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Please welcome Charles Darwin himself.

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(Applause)

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Charles Darwin: Dear colleagues, friends.

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I took this invitation to tell you
about an idea that little by little

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has been developing in my mind.

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I consider it a dangerous idea.

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Just because I know
you are people I can trust,

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open minded people that will appreciate
how delicate this matter is,

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I dare to expose it, yet incomplete.

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It’s an idea that concerns me,

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and, somehow, it’s turning into
a burden too heavy

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to be borne alone.

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I always considered 
my academic studies

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were nothing but a waste of time.

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I really had no idea 
how my life would turn,

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until 6 years ago I got a letter 
that would change it forever.

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My dear friend and mentor Henslow
told me that Capitan Fitz-Roy

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was about to start 
an expedition around the world

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and was willing to share 
part of his cabin

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with a young naturalist, without salary.

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That would be the beginning
of an adventure that would fulfill...

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Fulfill? It would exceed all my dreams
since I was a little boy!

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The expedition took longer than expected.
It ended up taking five years.

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And even so, I couldn’t get used to 
the boat rocking movement.

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But, the natural wonders I saw,
what I learned in that trip.

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I took notes almost every day,

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returned with so many journals 
I expect to publish as soon as possible.

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As a kid I loved nature, loved it,
collected minerals, insects.

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I remember once, I found 
a spectacular beetle,

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very different from the ones I had.

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And I caught it with a hand,

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and another one appeared 
and I caught it with the other hand,

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finally a third beetle appeared
and I couldn’t think of a better idea

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than putting one of them 
into my mouth in order to free one hand.

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At that moment, the beetle
spat a horrible liquid,

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very acid, I had to spit it out
and lost the other beetles.

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Imagine what it meant to me, then,

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to have access to that place
in the boat of Fitz-Roy.

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Besides, before we left, 
professor Henslow

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gave me a geology book.

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I must admit that,
when I was studying in Edinburgh,

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geology always seemed boring to me.

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I even swore I would never read
a book about it again.

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But, as it was a gift from him
I agreed to take it and read it.

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The book is "Principles of Geology" 
by Charles Lyell.

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An author I admired 
from the first page.

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And now I boast about counting him
among my closest friends.

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Lyell says that when we face
any geological formation,

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like a canyon or valley,

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we shouldn’t explain it through
extraordinary causes,

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like a singular flood 
or the caprice of the gods.

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No. All the past events, no matter 
how extraordinary they may seem

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should be explained through 
ordinary causes.

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For example, a canyon or a valley,
through the action of an ordinary river

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that slowly and constantly erodes it
for a long time.

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The key was time.

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Imagine how long it takes for
a little riverbed to form a canyon.

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The Earth, my friends, is much older
than we thought.

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Time and raindrops.

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Multiplying the drops 
by thousand downpours,

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and multiplying the action
of a river by thousand years,

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Lyell turns geology
into a mature discipline.

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He simply teaches us to recognize

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and decode in the rocks 
the message of time.

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He teaches us a new perspective to see 
the geological formations we already knew.

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As if they were the wrinkles in the face
of an old world.

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The impact the book had on me was such

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that every time I faced 
a landscape never seen by Lyell,

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I saw it through his eyes.

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Although nature wasn’t the same after him,

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it would still be the object
of my passion.

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So, it occurred to me to ask myself 
if this approach

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couldn’t be applied to other fields.

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That is, if the repetition
of little events

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through huge periods,
makes them effective.

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Maybe, time has created new things
in unforeseen spheres.

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That is, Lyell explains the origin
of a canyon

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with processes as simple as erosion.

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So, is it possible to explain
in a similar way

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the mystery of all mysteries?

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That is to say, the origin of the species.

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But, which are the forms,
the forces, that are still working

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and have shaped life?

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Which is the erosion that has created

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the wonderful diversity of species 
that inhabits our planet?

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No doubt, not even one,
that the naturalist

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who finds which such processes are,
will be the Newton of natural history.

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But, while I was asking myself
these questions during the trip

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I started to notice
certain signs in nature.

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Without being able to understand
their meanings and implications.

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Like a detective arriving
at the crime scene

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and doesn't know how it was committed.

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I’m talking of the dangerous idea

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I’m here to tell you about.

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For example, in the Galapagos archipelago

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I noticed that in each island
different turtles inhabited,

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with a different aspect, but above all
with a different flavor

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More than one proudly recognized
the island the dinner came from

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with just a bite.

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Many believed that it just was
a caprice of the creator.

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I was concerned about it.

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I needed to find another answer.

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I had clues for a new idea.

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But this idea didn't mature during 
the trip, but later.

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It was by accident.

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I sent my complete collection of birds
from the trip to an expert ornithologist

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to have them catalogued.

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In the sample, there were a series 
of little birds, chaffinches,

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I collected in the four islands
I visited in Galapagos.

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In each island, the chaffinches 
showed different modifications.

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The idea I came up with, 
the most reasonable one,

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was that the birds came
from the continent

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and have adapted to
the different environments

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of each island.


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We were dogmatically taught that a species
can never be transformed into another one.

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However, the expert told me
that despite their resemblance

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they weren’t varieties of the same species

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but different species.

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The modifications the chaffinches
suffered in each island

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achieved what we considered impossible;

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the species change.

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Can the ordinary mechanisms
that generate transformations

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in each species create different species

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if we give them enough time?

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I thought how taxonomists
group life forms:

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varieties into species, 
species into kinds,

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kinds into families.

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The “family" idea started
to go around in my head.

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And if it was just about that?

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If the term "relationship" was more
than an expression

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but a real thing instead?

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If the whole life on Earth
was part of a big family?

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Maybe, the complete biodiversity

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is the product of the descendant

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of some ancient ancestors.

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Perhaps, and this may be
a little risky,

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there is a single ancestor for all of us.

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Imagine. The history of Earth,
the history of life on Earth

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would be like the history of a tree.

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A tree whose branches represent

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the varieties of all the families

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that inhabited and inhabit our planet.

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A family tree that grows
imperceptibly day by day.

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And this is where the idea
becomes even more dangerous.

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If we follow the implicit logic
of this thought,

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we, human beings,

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would also be part of this big family,

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with moths, orangutans,
and Galapagos chaffinches.

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We would be a little branch
in the leafy tree of life.

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We wouldn’t be the result
of the direct action of the creator.

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We’d no longer be
the center of creation,

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but just descendants of an
animal form already extinct.

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But as always, this leads us
to new questions.

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If we all are part of a big family,

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it’s inevitable to want to know
how our ancestors were.

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Perhaps in the future, we may be lucky
and able to find their fossils.

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But, how can we know how they moved,
what they thought,

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laughed, cried, what they dreamed of?

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Lyell taught me to read the past
in the geological strata.

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I wondered in which stratum we naturalists

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should read our own past.

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We bear the footprints
with which, in the future,

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we could rescue our ancestors.

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The forces we are searching for
left a scene full of clues.

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And the answer, like the erosion,
is in the full eye of everyone.

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You just have to be open minded
to find it.

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Think about it:

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If someone meets with me,
my brother and my cousin Francis

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in a room, they could suspect
we are family.

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They could even dare say my brother
is closer to me than my cousin.

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All this, just thanks to

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the detailed observation
of the physical resemblance.

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So, observe the wing of this bat.

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It has the same bones, in the same
disposition as our hand.

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And these similarities can also be found

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in the structure of a bird's wing,

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or even in an extinct reptile.

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From my point of view, 
these similarities occur

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because they are inherited 
from a common organism:

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the organism from which they descend.

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And these similarities reflect
a genealogical relationship.

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Birds, mammals and reptiles are family.

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And we can also deduce that bats

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are closer to us than reptiles or birds.

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Like my brother is closer to me

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than my cousin.

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And another very important thing:

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if someone observes
my cousin, my brother and me,

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they could imagine,
even without meeting him,

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characteristics of my grandfather.

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By examining these bones,

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we can know characteristics
of the organism they descend from.

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For example, that it had a spine,

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that certain bones were
connected with other ones, etc.

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And, isn’t it possible to apply this
method further than to bones?

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Don’t the yawns, that many times

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our loyal dogs pass on us,

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talk of our ancestors?

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Isn’t it meaningful

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that in our anger gestures
we show our teeth?

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Like wanting to show the huge canines
we no longer have.

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Maybe, it’s a gesture dogs and humans
inherited from a common ancestor.

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And the dogs that keep us company at home,

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and we consider members of our family,

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who would have thought
that they really are our family.

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And who would have thought
that partridges are too,

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in which both human and dogs 
buried our teeth.

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I know I have to find an explanation,

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in Lyell’s way,

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that tells how they are produced,

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these modifications,

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These ramifications in the tree of life.

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How come my dear chaffinches

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got their beaks modified, in each island

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to be able to eat the food
available there?

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What is missing is the natural mechanism

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that generates the beautiful adaptations 
of the organisms

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to their environment.

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To be honest, I have no idea
which this mechanism is.

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Anyway, all this radically changes

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the way we see ourselves.

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That’s why the idea is so dangerous.

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It’s against the foundation

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of our moral values.

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How could I share this idea
with people who still think

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that we are the center of creation?

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How could I share it with an audience

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that doesn’t even recognize
a common origin for all human beings

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and in this way pretends
to justify slavery?

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How would they take my idea that we have
an origin in common with primates?

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Beyond the seriousness of this statement

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I was comforted that this conception

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gives arguments to those of us

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who are horrified by slavery.

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I remember how terribly upset I was

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when I saw the unfair treatment
black people received in Brazil,

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or the natives in Argentina.

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I see from here that some of you
look at me flabbergasted,

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others even show me their canines.

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Another ones, curiously,
seem satisfied with the idea.

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It’s not necessary to convince me 
of how hard it is to digest this idea.

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00:19:15,591 --> 00:19:20,341
It’s like wasting almost all I learned
during my studies

246
00:19:20,847 --> 00:19:24,157
and much of what you probably learned.

247
00:19:26,785 --> 00:19:30,955
Well, the confession is made.

248
00:19:32,721 --> 00:19:37,801
And I say confession because
having told you my idea,

249
00:19:37,801 --> 00:19:41,693
for my conscience and fears,

250
00:19:41,693 --> 00:19:45,183
is like having confessed a crime.

251
00:19:45,763 --> 00:19:46,660
Thank you.

252
00:19:47,940 --> 00:19:53,520
(Applause)