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Darwin Does It Again

By Peter Lloyd

About 20 minutes into their December 2005 Charlie Rose television interview, Edward O. Wilson and James D. Watson agreed that "Charles Darwin was the most important person who ever lived on Earth." Watson explained to Charlie that "Darwin was the first person, using observation and experience, to really put man in his place in the world."

I'm not surprised that scientists would select another scientist as the world's greatest person, but in support of their claim, consider this:

In 1862 Darwin examined a Madagascan comet orchid with its foot-long nectar tube. He hypothesized that there had to be an insect with a proboscis just as long to pollinate it. In the early 20th century, scientists discovered the giant hawk moth. Its nine-inch proboscis seemed to verify Darwin's prediction, yet no one had ever claimed to have seen the moth use its proboscis in a comet orchid. Then, in the early 21st century, the hawk moth was videotaped doing just what Darwin predicted nearly 150 years earlier.

The great Muhammad Ali, named Sportsman of the Century by Sports Illustrated magazine, separated himself from the world of loud-mouthed braggarts by actually accomplishing the boxing feats he would predict. Greatness, it seems, is as much in predicting as it is in accomplishing. Science is nothing without prediction.

In their interview, Watson and Wilson made a number of predictions—actually more like speculations—regarding the most exciting subjects on the science horizon. Among them—discoveries concerning the human mind and human consciousness. As they discussed what they would like to know and what we might learn in the coming years, the talk came back around to Darwin. The great one, as you might expect, had something to say about human attempts to crack the code of human consciousness. He called this area of endeavor, "the citadel that cannot be taken by direct assault."

I don't know whether Charlie Rose has interviewed Mohammad Ali. No Ali interviews are listed on the Charlie Rose website. But as Charlie concluded his Watson-Wilson interview he said, "I have done at least 30-thousand interviews and this is one that I am most proud."

Peter Lloyd is co-creator with Stephen Grossman of Animal Crackers, the breakthrough problem-solving tool designed to crack your toughest problems.
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