’Darwin’ to lecture on evolution

PA 62/09 Science buffs are being invited to take a trip back through time to hear the founding father of modern biology Charles Darwin present his theory of evolution as part of an event taking place at The University of Nottingham. Darwin — aka evolutionary geneticist Professor John Brookfield in full Victorian attire — will outline the ideas from his 1859 breakthrough publication The Origin of Species , which presented the theory of natural selection as the main driving force for evolution. The lecture comes as part of a wider event running at the Portland Building on University Park campus between 11am and 4pm on Saturday March 14, organised to celebrate National Science and Engineering Week and to mark 2009 as the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth. Of his forthcoming role, Professor Brookfield said: "I decided to be Darwin circa 1862 when he was 53, the same age I am now. It will be as if Charles Darwin has come forward in a time machine just that morning and isn't up to speed on 21st century biology so there won't be anything in there about DNA and the latest genetic advances. "Charles Darwin was incredibly important because he, along with Alfred Russel Wallace, was the first person to come up with the mechanism for evolution. It wasn't a new concept — for around 100 years many people generally accepted that evolution probably happened and that different species had evolved over time, had a shared descent and a common ancestor.