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Posts Tagged ‘Charles Darwin’

Why The War of the Worlds Matters

As a child, while confined to bed because of an illness, Robert Hutchings Goddard (1882–1945) read H G Wells’ The War of the Worlds and became captivated with rockets and outer space. Goddard was a pioneer in liquid-fuelled rocketry and made significant contributions to the field. In addition, spaceflight pioneers Hermann Oberth (1894–1989 and Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857–1935 read science-fiction novels and stories by writers such as Wells and French novelist Jules Verne (1828–1905). Will The War of the Worldsby HG Wells inspire the innovative streak in you?

Cover of H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds

Why Herbert George Wells is Qualified to Write The War of the World

How does an author acquire the scientific knowledge and imagination to write such a book? “Herbert George Wells won a scholarship to the Normal School of Science at South Kensington in 1884, where he studied under biologist T. H. Huxley. Subsequently, he worked as a teacher and then as a journalist, producing a series of scientific speculations for a number of leading periodicals including the Fortnightly Review and Nature.” (Encyclopedia of World Biography, Vol. 16. 2nd ed. Detroit: Gale, 2004. p195-196)

Wells was an excellent debater and debated with Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) and Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945), both well-known US presidents. In 1888, Wells presented a paper titled, “Are the Planets Habitable?” to the Debating Society at the Royal College of Science. He was also very interested in Charles Darwin’s work on natural selection – his theory on evolution. “[Wells’] legacy in terms of science, technology, and ethics lies in his imaginative application of science to invention, his hopefulness about what science may produce for humanity, but also his warnings about what the abuse of science may mean for the human race.” (Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics, Ed. Carl Mitcham. Vol. 4. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. p2061-2062. John S. Partington)

HG Wells’ The War of the World is an invasion story. However, it’s an invasion by beings from another planet. It is about interplanetary warfare and is written in a journalistic style. The names of newspapers are mentioned in the context of journalists reporting the invasion of the Martians. The narrator of The War of the Worlds is a philosophical writer who is never named. He relates his encounter with the Martians who invade earth and includes his brother’s encounter with them. You know that the narrator and his brother survive the invasion because the story is told after the fact. In the story, the brothers do not meet so you assume that they got together after and talked about their experiences. You believe what the narrator is telling you, because there is a certain kind of honesty about him. And the journalistic style makes the story believable.

The Martians invade earth in a cylindrical mechanism. Humans believe that they are superior to other beings. For days in 1894, missiles are launched from Mars to Earth. The narrator and Ogilvy a well known astronomer at Ottershaw are observing using a telescope. The missiles are launched for 10 days and then they finally stop. Ogilvy surmises that it is unlikely that there is organic evolution on Mars.

The narrator lives in Maybury, and the first alien craft lands at Horsell Common in England. Ogilvy is the one who discovers it. Ogilvy, Henderson, Stent, Royal and several workmen pry the craft open. There are several onlookers when the craft is opened. The narrator describes what he sees, “I presently saw something stirring within the shadow: greyish billowy movements, one above another, and then two luminous disks—like eyes. Then something resembling a grey snake, about the thickness of a walking stick, coiled up out of the writhing middle, and wriggled in the air towards me–-and then another….The mass that framed them [the eyes], the head of the thing, was rounded, and had, one might say, a face. There was a mouth under the eyes, the lipless brim of what quivered and panted, and dropped saliva. The whole creature heaved and pulsated convulsively. A lank tentacular appendage gripped the edge of the cylinder, another swayed in the air.”

People are terrified and yet fascinated by what they are seeing. After they pry the craft open and see what’s inside Ogilvy, Henderson, Stent, Royal and the workmen leave hurriedly. A Deputation including Ogilvy, Henderson and Stent returns and the Martians incinerate them. The narrator relates the terror he is feeling.

When the warfare begins, people start to evacuate. The narrator loads a few things that are meaningful, and takes his wife to Leatherhead where he has a cousin, thinking that she will be safe there, and returns to Maybury. The warfare is very one-sided – the Martians are in 100-feet tripods, which protect them. They incinerate anything and anyone in sight and they emit a poisonous gas into the air. And more Martians invade earth, and they unmercifully attack humans, although humans outnumber them. They are more organized than humans in their attack, and they also work together as a team.

The War of the Worlds describes the Martians’ journey from town to town, county to county, and the destruction they unleash along the way. When the narrator returns home, he is watching what’s going on, from inside his house. While looking through the window, he sees a soldier, and whispers to him to come inside. The soldier updates the narrator on the fate of the other soldiers in his regiment. It quickly becomes very clear to the soldier and the narrator that it’s unsafe to remain where they are. When they are leaving, the soldier tells the narrator to take food with him, and they both stuff food inside their pockets. That’s a great lesson for the narrator, and it comes in handy later on.

A big part of the story takes place when the narrator encounters the curate, while trying to evade the Martians. The curate is a religious man, a pastor, whose church is destroyed by the Martians. He asks the narrator, “Why are these things permitted? What sins have we done? The morning service was over, I was walking through the roads to clear my brain for the afternoon, and then—fire, earthquake, death! As if it were Sodom and Gomorrah! All our work undone, all the work—What are these Martians?”

The narrator views what’s unfolding before his eyes through a scientific lens, which contrasts with the curate’s religious view. The curate talks about the beginning of the end, and the great and terrible day of the Lord, and the narrator screams at him, telling him to man-up. “‘Be a man!’ said I. ‘You are scared out of your wits! What good is religion if it collapses under calamity? Think of what earthquakes, and floods, wars and volcanoes, have done before to men! Did you think God had exempted Weybridge? He is not an insurance agent.’”

They travel together, and it’s much of the same. The constant whining by the clergy and the narrator wishing his companion wasn’t with him. They end up in a house, and in the pantry they find bread, steak, ham and beer. The house suffers from the terror the Martians are unleashing, and collapses on them. The narrator is hurt and unconscious for a short time. They are trapped under the house for nearly two weeks. However, they get to closely observe the Martians.

The curate personifies everything you would not expect in a religious person. He is extremely greedy and is only thinking about himself. Had the narrator not intervened and rationed the food, the curate would have consumed it all. Yes they were facing a very stressful time, but would you not expect a pastor to be at peace with the strong likelihood that he is going to die? He would be transitioning to another world that’s very different and some might say better than ours.

They take turns to look through a hole at what the Martians are doing outside the house. The narrator gets a close up view of them. He sees the Martians consuming the blood of humans to satiate themselves and get the nutrients they need to survive. The curate becomes mad being in a confined space and from the stress of the situation. He starts to scream, which alerts the Martians to the presence of humans. The narrator hits him over the head to quiet him down, but it’s too late. He hides when he sees the Martian invade their hiding place. The curate is killed.

When the Martians leave, the narrator slips out of the house, and shortly after, he encounters the soldier he had met previously. The soldier relates his plan to survive the invasion, and the narrator gets caught up in the vision. But after observing the soldier for a few days he realizes that the soldier is all talk and no action. The plan is essentially one for “ethnic” cleansing – forced cleansing of the weaker and marginalized. The narrator is ashamed of himself, and realizes that he has to find his wife, who he temporarily forgot about.

I was very emotional while reading The War of the Worlds by HG Wells, and felt that the way the Martians died was very anticlimactic. But a few days later, I changed my mind, and felt it was very profound and powerful. Technology does not destroy the Martians, bacteria does. Humans are immune to many bacteria, but there isn’t any bacteria on Mars. They drink the blood of humans and introduce bacteria into their systems, which they couldn’t withstand. Indeed it was survival of the fittest.

I was also distressed while reading the book because I felt that the soldiers were uncoordinated with their attack, and I was feeling so helpless because I was right there with the narrator. With all his education, the narrator could not conceive of a plan to stop the invasion. When the soldiers accidentally kill one of the Martians, I expected them to evaluate what they did so that they could replicate the action, but I guess that wasn’t the point. The narrator returns home believing his wife is dead after hearing accounts from others about the destruction of Leatherhead. She returns home as well, with the narrator’s cousin, so they have all survived the invasion.

A big lesson that I learned from The War of the Worlds is that community is very important. During the invasion, most people were acting as individuals and taking care of their own needs instead of working in a coordinated manner. I recommend The War of the Worlds by HG Wells.

Works by H G Wells

The Time Machine (The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds (Everyman’s Library (Cloth))) (1895)

The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896)

The Invisible Man (1897)

The First Men in the Moon (1901),

The Wonderful Visit (1895)

The Sea Lady (The Work Collection of H G Wells Set.13 (The Salvaging Of Civilisation, The Sea Lady, The Sleeper Awakes)) (1902)

“The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents” (1893)

“The Red Room” (1896),

The War of the Worlds (1898)

“The Door in the Wall”

Anticipations (1902)

Kipps(1905)

Ann Veronica (1909)

The History of Mr Polly (Penguin Classics) (1910)

The New Machiavelli (1911)

The World Set Free (1913)

Boon (Boon, The Mind of the Race, The Wild Asses of the Devil, and The Last Trump; Being a First Selection from the Literary Remains of George Boon, Appropriate to the Times) (1915)

The Outline of History H. G. Wells Volume I & II (1920)

A Short History of the World (1922)

Men Like Gods (1923)

The Science of Life (1930)

The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind, in Two Volumes (1931)

The Shape of Things To Come (1933)

Things to Come (1936)

Mind at the End of its Tether; and The Happy Turning: A Dream of Life (1945)

The Essential H. G. Wells Collection (38 books and story collections) [Illustrated]

For those who have a Kindle, you can download any of the books by clicking here.

War Of The Worlds Radio Broadcast Part 1

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War Of The Worlds Radio Broadcast Part 2

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War Of The Worlds Radio Broadcast Part 3

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War Of The Worlds Radio Broadcast Part 4

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War Of The Worlds Radio Broadcast Part 5

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War Of The Worlds Radio Broadcast Part 6

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War Of The Worlds Radio Broadcast Part 7

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Other Science Fiction and Fantasy SummaReviews

Book Review: Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov

A Look at Foundation’s Edge, Foundation and Earth and Forward the Foundation by Isaac Asimov

The Hunger Games is This Year’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Book Review: Catching Fire and Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Book Review: The Invisible Man by HG Wells

Review – Success Lessons from Gin Blanco in Jennifer Estep’s Spider’s Revenge

Review: Divergent by Veronica Roth 

Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Book links are affiliate links.

Cover via Amazon

This is what we talked about on The Invisible Mentor Blog this week: The Restorer by Amanda Stevens, Charles Darwin and Interview with Tracy Matthewman.

Mondays at the Salon

Recently I attended a workshop titled Going Beyond Google offered by SCIP (Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals) led by Sean Campbell of Cascade Insights. We have become so dependent on Google that we seldom look elsewhere to find information. This webinar was a great reminder to me about the hidden web, and I picked up some great tips that I’d like to share.

Going Beyond Google for Research

Booked on Tuesdays

As I was reading Amanda Stevens’ The Restorer, I kept on asking myself, “Why am I reading this, it’s going to give me bloody nightmares,” and in fact I had nightmares after I finished reading it. I completed the book and am looking forward to the second instalment which is coming out in November. Though this book is a work of fiction, it taught me lessons and made me think. We have rules that we live by, whether they are rules imposed on us, or rules we made for ourselves. But what happens, when the rules become outdated? Or only some of them work? What do you do then?

Review: Escape Reading Has its Place – Review of The Restorer by Amanda Stevens

Wisdom Wednesdays

For Charles Robert Darwin, an English naturalist, clergyman and professor of biology, John Stevens Henslow gave him his big break when he was recommended for the position of an unpaid naturalist aboard the HMS Beagle expedition to chart coastlines in South America and other areas of the Pacific. That one big break helped to chart Darwin’s life.

Charles Robert Darwin, Naturalist Who Presented the Origin of Species Theory 

Perspective Thursdays and Workshop Fridays

This week we featured Tracy Matthewman, Internet Marketer and Social Media Trainer. Mentors have played a critical role in Matthewman’s life, one suggested that she work less hours, which she did and decreased the amount of stress she faced in her life. Here are Part One and Part Two of Tracy Matthewman’s interview.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Image via Wikipedia

Take a moment and think about who gave you your big break? For Charles Robert Darwin, an English naturalist, clergyman and professor of biology, John Stevens Henslow gave him his big break when he was recommended for the position of an unpaid naturalist aboard the HMS Beagle expedition to chart coastlines in South America and other areas of the Pacific. That one big break given to Darwin helped to chart his life.

Name: Charles Robert Darwin

Birth Date: February 1809 – April 1882

Job Functions: English Naturalist

Fields: Natural History, Geology, Evolution

Known For: The Origin of Species

Charles Robert Darwin was born in the early 19^th century in Shrewsbury, England, the fifth child of Robert and Susannah Darwin. Both his father, and grandfather, Erasmus Darwin were prominent physicians. His mother, who was the daughter of the famous porcelain maker Josiah Wedgwood, died when Darwin was only eight.

Darwin showed an early interest in natural sciences, especially geology. When he was nine, Darwin attended Shrewsbury School but was not a very good student. In 1825, his father recommended that he study medicine at the University of Edinburg, but Darwin’s earlier failure to achieve academic distinction followed him there. “At Edinburgh, Darwin collected animals in tidal pools, trawled for oysters with Newhaven fishermen to obtain specimens, and made two small discoveries which he incorporated in papers read before the Plinian Society. He put forth no “strenuous effort” to learn medicine.”

His father then suggested that he study theology at the Christ’s College at the University of Cambridge in 1828. While at the University of Cambridge, instead of devoting time to clerical studies, Darwin often whiled the time away pursuing his passion for natural sciences. He “developed into an ardent entomologist, particularly devoted to collecting beetles; he had the satisfaction of seeing one of his rare specimens published in James Francis Stephens’ Illustration of British Insects.” Throughout young adulthood, Darwin enjoyed hunting, shooting, and specimen collection.

Darwin’s cousin, William Darwin Fox an entomologist, guided him, and introduced him to clergyman and biologist, John Stevens Henslow who became his tutor in mathematics and theology, and mentor in his personal studies in botany, geology, and zoology. Henslow advised Darwin to join an expedition and delay his appointment to the Church of England. This turned out to be solid advice for Darwin.

A few months after graduation, on December 27, 1831, when Darwin was 22, he embarked on an unpaid position, as part of an expedition team aboard the British survey ship HMS Beagle, headed for the coasts of South America, the Galapagos Islands, New Zealand and Tasmania. Originally, the expedition team was chartered for three years, but Darwin remained a part of the ship’s crew for five years. He was tasked with undertaking the geological, zoological, and botanical side of the official naval survey.

During the voyage from December 27, 1831 to October 2, 1836, Darwin spent 535 days at sea and roughly 1200 on land. On the expedition, he had the first volume of the English geologist’s, Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology, which directed his observations of the geological structure of Cape Verde Islands. But some of Darwin’s observations in South America did not fit with Lyell’s theories.

Darwin kept his field observations in notebooks with the specimens listed serially and their place and time of collection documented. His notes included details on flora, fauna, geological formation and ecology. In South America, Darwin paid attention to changes in the land brought about by earthquakes and volcanoes. On the 10 Galapagos islands Darwin observed and noted that the islands shared many species of flora and fauna in common, but each island also displayed distinct variations within the same group of organisms. Over the upcoming years and when he returned to England, Darwin pondered on the reasons for the variations.

Upon his return to England in 1836, Darwin organized his notes. He also became good friends with Lyell whose work, Principles of Geology helped to direct him; and Darwin later became good friends with botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker, and biologist Thomas Henry Huxley. Both Lyell and Hooker were extremely helpful and supportive to Darwin, and Huxley became known as “Darwin’s Bulldog” for his advocacy of Darwin’s theory of evolution. Lyell welcomed Darwin’s new research on coral reefs and encouraged him to publish other studies from his voyages.

Darwin was elected a fellow of the Geological Society in 1836, elected to the Athenaeum, the exclusive club for men distinguished in literature, art, or science in 1838, and became a member of the Royal Society in 1839. That same year, he published his Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History of the Various Countries Visited by H.M.S. Beagle.

Darwin had delayed publishing any of his research for a few years as he looked for explanations for evolution to account for the variations in species he had noted on the expedition. In 1838, Darwin found what he was looking for in Thomas Malthus’s 1798 work, An Essay on the Principle of Population. In the essay, Malthus was concerned with overpopulation resulting in famine, and the possible competition for food which could ensue. Darwin surmised that in the struggle for existence, “favourable variations would tend to be preserved and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result would be the formation of new species. Here then I had at last a theory by which to work.”

He confided his theory to Lyell and Hooker who urged him to publish his views, but as a very detailed-oriented person, Darwin wanted to further work through his theory, and at the time he was only half-way through his book. In the summer of 1858, Darwin received an essay from Alfred Russell Wallace containing ideas that were very similar to his. Wallace, an English naturist writing from the East Indian Archipelago was asking Darwin to appraise his work. It turns out that Wallace had also read Malthus’ essay.

Once again, Darwin turned to his close friends Lyell and Hooker and submitted his dilemma. He wrote, “Your words have come true with a vengeance – that I should be forestalled.” His friends proposed that Darwin and Wallace collaborate and do a joint announcement. They publicly declared their hypothesis by submitting the paper, On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection to the Linnean Society.

On November 24, 1859, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life over 500 pages in length appeared. The entire first edition of 1,250 copies was sold out on the day of publication. There was public outcry, but Darwin already had friends like Thomas Henry Huxley, also known as “Darwin’s Bulldog” who fiercely defended his ideas of evolution. The Origin of Species “stimulated a general participation by intellectuals of varied casts and backgrounds, some of whom were poorly qualified to join the battle. Philosophers, theologians, biologists, geologists, anthropologists, sociologists, even politicians and men of letters, joined in the melee, with victors and vanquished almost indistinguishable.”

Interestingly enough, Darwin was not the first to propose that species could change over time. For instance, Robert Hooke postulated that fossils could be the remains of vanished ancient species; Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck held that species could evolve through the inheritance of acquired characteristics; and Darwin’s own grandfather Erasmus Darwin had suggested that species might be developing over time by passing changes on through reproduction.

After being a mediocre student all his life, Darwin found success when he focused on his strengths and passions. He kept notebooks, always documented his work, and had a network of people with whom he shared his ideas. And it’s also important to document your work because at any point in time people in different places share the same ideas.

Other Publications

Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History of the Various Countries Visited by H.M.S. Beagle (1839)

The Voyage of the Beagle (1840)

The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs (1842)

A Monograph of the Cirripedia (1851, 1854)

The Descent of Man (London 1871)

The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872)

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Works Cited/Referenced

Encyclopedia of Population

Encyclopedia of World Biography

Macmillan Encyclopedia of Death and Dying

Encyclopedia of Science, Technology and Ethics

International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences

New Catholic Encyclopedia

World of Earth Science

Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology

Science and Its Times

UXL Encyclopedia of World Biography

Encyclopedia of European Social History

How to Read a Book, pp393-395

Quantum Leaps: 100 Scientists Who Changed the World, Jon Balchin

Books that Changed the World, Andrew Taylor

During an interview once, the interviewee told me that she has often been mentored by the many books that she has read. While browsing a book about authors as mentors in a bookstore, one of the contributors called books, paper mentors.  The contributor also indicated that the author of Harriet the Spy mentored and influenced her as a writer.

Image via Wikipedia

Can a book be a mentor? Or is it the author who assumes the role of mentor? What about the characters in fiction, can they act as mentors? To answer these questions, requires that we look at the roles that mentors play in our lives. In the most basic sense, a mentor helps a protégé to achieve something that’s really important to her.

The Role of Mentors

• Advisor
• Role Model
• Sounding Board
• Guide
• Teacher/Skills Developer
• Resource Provider
• Champion/Advocate
• Cheerleader
• Confidant
• Critic
• Friend
• Facilitator

Mentors play many of the roles above, but no one mentor can play all of the roles in our lives. Let’s say for argument sake that books can be mentors, what characteristics would the books have for them to be great mentors? For a book to assume the role of a mentor, it has to have many of the elements below:

• Provokes thought
• Provides a deeper level of understanding and heightened awareness
• Ignites passion
• Awakens deep-seated emotions
• Provides practical wisdom
• Chronicles events for strategic guidance
• Provides formulas and intellectual frameworks to use
• Be about a change maker
• Solves everyday problems
• Shifts the reader’s mindset

Reflecting on the elements of a book that make it a mentor, when was the last time you read a really good book that mentored you? If there are books that have mentored you, just like my interviewee, think about the following questions.

• What was it about that book that made it memorable?
• How did you feel after you finished reading the book…sated… hungering for more…unnerved…?
• Did you take copious notes while you were reading this book?
• How many people did you refer this book to?
• Did it evoke any strong emotional response from you?
• Have you used any ideas from the book?
• What genre of book was it?
• Would you say that the book had a profound impact on your life?

If there are books that have mentored you, look at others that deal with the same topic, and do what Mortimer Adler recommends in How to Read a Book, and that is to read syntopically to master the topic, and I would add to also get divergent views. How do the books compare to each other? If the book is about a new area, think about what the author is saying, does it make sense? How does it stack up against what you already know? Also, identify:

• The problem the author presented and how it was solved
• The relevance of the information to your work and life
• Five takeaways
• Five great ideas you can glean from the information presented
• Any rule breaking
• Ideas/solutions that relate to work and life
• Solutions to everyday problems
• Ways to use ideas/insights/takeaways to increase the value of your product/service to your customers both internal and external to the organization

A book can never take the place of a traditional mentor, but it can assume some of the roles of a mentor, especially when you are trying to learn something, to gather information or to further your understanding of something.

Examples Where Books (and other publications) as Mentors Helped

Charles Darwin and British biologist Alfred Russel Wallace independently arrived at similar theories of Natural Selection in the mid-1800s after reading Essay on the Principle of Population by British pastor Thomas Malthus.

After many years of research and observing birds in flight, German engineer Otto Lilienthal, also known as the King of Gliders published his findings in the widely read book Birdflight as the Basis of Aviation. Lilienthal’s research article Practical Experiments for the Development of Human Flight, writings and notes proved invaluable to Orville Wright and Wilbur Wright also known as the Wright brothers. The Wright brothers believed that they could improve Lilienthal’s designs and resolve the problems plaguing aircraft theories. The Wright Brothers are credited for inventing the airplane.

As a child, while confined to bed because of illness, Robert Hutchings Goddard read H G Wells’ The War of the Worlds and became captivated with rockets and outer space. Goddard was a pioneer in liquid-fuelled rocketry and made significant contributions to the field.

While reading an article on a flight, Jeff Bezos founder of Amazon learned that the Internet was growing 2,300 per cent each year and wondered how he could use the information. He then looked at the top 20 catalogues to identify which would translate best to an online business and as a result Amazon was formed.

Now that you have read all this information, can books, authors and characters mentor you? I will leave that for you to digest and decide for yourself. How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Book links are affiliate links!

Image Credit: Wikipedia

In what novel ways have you used information that you came across? What’s one concept that you discovered that has served you well? For me, it’s the creativity model presented in the Art of Thought by Graham Wallas. While conducting research on biomimicry, I came across information about a three-phase, 14-step process designed by Peter Floyd and Stephen R. Grossman that presents animal adaptations as models for problem solving. What got me excited was I had already decided that I was going to look at the idea of Evolution on this blog, which is one of the 50 ideas presented in 50 Big Ideas You Really Need to Know About by Ben Dupré, and here were two guys who are using Darwin’s three-step process for evolutionary change: extinction, mutation and selection. Floyd and Grossman have taken the three-steps and broken them down into a problem solving model. I thought that was simply brilliant, but I know that you can create a model that’s equally brilliant.

As presented by Ben Dupré, the idea of Evolution is a short read and only four pages in length. He talks about the origin of species, natural selection and the fifth ape.

“In the Origin, Charles Darwin succinctly summarizes natural selection as follows: ‘As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it very however slightly in any manner profitable, to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected . From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form.’”

From the information presented in Dupré’s idea of evolution, I have extracted three great ideas that are very useful in a personal context:

1. In nature, resources such as food and mates are limited, so there will always be competition for access to them
2. Some people will be better equipped than others to prevail life’s struggles, and it is these individuals  that will live longer and produce more offspring
3. By minute and gradual changes over innumerable generations, animals and plants become better adapted to their surroundings; some species or kinds disappear, to be replaced  by others that have proved more successful for existence.

Possible Interpretation of These Ideas

• In flattened organizational structures, there are limited opportunities for promotions, therefore those expecting to excel must differentiate themselves and become more valuable to their clients, both internal and external
• The more skilled you become at problem solving, the better equipped you become at overcoming everyday challenges
• The more change resilient you are, and the more more receptive you are to ambiguity, the more longevity you’ll enjoy in the workplace
• Small and incremental changes lead to big changes in your life
• The more adaptable you are to change, the more success you’ll enjoy

As a professional, how can you use the idea of evolution to succeed in work and life? What changes can you make in your life to give you an edge?

Why evolution is one of the 50 ideas you really need to know about

Today you have to change or become extinct, so you have to mutate to be selected, in what ways can you change? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

Photo and Video Credit: Apture