Darwin Day with Dr. Matthew Morris

Darwin famously wrote “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ
existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive,
slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” This risky
prediction generated two different sorts of debate: the first among biologists of
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who debated whether Darwin’s
claim was correct – must evolution be gradual? – and the other from present-day
creationists who argue that certain complex traits refute Darwin’s claim. Yet a
partial solution to both was already hinted at by Darwin: organismal bodies are
flexible. Phenotypes can change under different environmental stimuli, and this
can happen rapidly, dramatically, and in a coordinated fashion. Dr. Morris will
introduce the concept of phenotypic plasticity, the capacity of a single genotype
to produce multiple environmentally determined phenotypes, and suggest that
some modern critiques of Darwin can be put to rest through an understanding
of what Darwin called that “most perplexing subject.”