In this talk I compare the theory of Charles Darwin in his Origin of Species, published 150 years ago in 1859, with the modern theory of evolution, the theory of 2009. I want to see if any parts of Darwin’s thinking persist to this day and what has been changed or discarded and why. In respects, I argue that Darwin’s theory is like the People’s Car of Germany in the 1930s. Today, there is not one piece of that car still being manufactured and incorporated into today’s cars. And yet, the Beetle of today is still recognizably the car of yesterday. To make my case, I look both at the structure of Darwin’s theory and then at the various parts of biology – instinct, paleontology, biogeography, systematics, morphology, embryology – and see how they fare today. In the light of my conclusions, I am then able to make some brief critical remarks about those who now either deny evolution entirely or who question the efficacy of natural selection.
