Darwin talks among us

It's been a long time since I first started this post. It was originally meant for the Freaky Brits section -a section that I haven't updated in a while, I must be used to almost any freaky thing these folks do, now. But I decided to make a bit more personal, since all the original references are lost in oblivion. I barely remember an article that appeared in the first days of December on the Evening Standard suggesting that London commuters have adopted a Darwinist strategy to cope with overcrowded trains. I also remember a conversation with the editor of Nam, a woman who has lived in New York for many years and was sadly surprised at the aggressiveness of people in the Tube.

When I first moved to London, I heard the name of Darwin quite often. That was not much of a shock: last year it was the 200th anniversary of his birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the origin of species. No wonder Darwin is so influential. Along with Galileo, who deprived men of the pride of being at the centre of the universe, and Freud, who deprived men of the pride of being self controlled at all times, Darwin has deprived men of another major pride: being unique among the creatures on earth.

At first, I was very reluctant to accept the pervasive force of Darwin's presence. Mostly because I felt more the Spencerian attitude, which is the application of Darwin's principle to society. The idea that just the fit ones make it repelled me. Which was even more striking to my self-conscience, because at 16 I once wrote that I firmly believe in Darwin's principle. In the fight against my mom and her illness, I felt the power of Darwin's theories and made them mine. Six years after that, compassion and understanding, and probably having been hurt, have scraped the crust of my toughness.

It was a wake-up call the disgust I felt towards Darwin. I realised that as much as I don't like to define myself a Catholic, and being an atheist I am most definitely not in belief, I am Catholic in culture and frame of mind. The idea of a Church, a community of men and women that takes care of you, even if you are unfit, is deeply rooted in my mind.

It is not by chance, perhaps, that today I read once more the name of the great revolutionary, Darwin, in the God issue of the New Statesman. In an interview, Martin Rees, astronomer and president of the Royal Society, referred to Darwin, evolution, DNA and said that creationists are "intellectually deprived. They don't appreciate the wonderful story that science has opened up for us." Because it's all about storytelling, no? I thought it was a nice way to put it.

Another interesting point he made was when he said that educated people, although aware of being the outcome of billions of years of evolution, tend to feel somehow at the end of it. Now, I consider myself an educated person, but it took me just a look at my nephew when he was born, a tiny fragile body, wrinkled and fresh, to understand that we are most certainly not at the end of anything. I remember that one of the first thing I thought, when I saw him, touched him, held him, was: Here is someone who will bury me. Someone who will make his time long after I'm gone. And I was nearly 20. And I didn't even have a degree back then.