Darwin and His Heritage or Making the Biology a First Class Science

Abstract

In this issue of Hacettepe Journal of Biology and Chemistry, we would like to present our contribution to the celebration of one of the greatest naturalist of the history of science, Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday and the 150th years of publication of his opus magnum, shortly known as “The Origin of Species”. Undoubtedly, starting indeed the evolutionary biology as a science and establishing its very basic tenet of the variation in the organisms as the object of change that may lead finally to new species, Darwin’s lasting impact and the heritage of the Origin mostly determines what we know of evolution both in the field and the laboratory. Though Darwin proposed strict scenarios of natural selection for the shaping of the organisms that varied, his plurality and deep insight has given impetus to a structure of evolutionary theory with great moves both with selective and nonselective dynamics such as random genetic drift that have accomplished a great deal to understand nature since the publication of the Origin 150 years ago. With fully acknowledging this arsenal of theory and practice, here we would like to present articles from the broad scope of scientists using evolution in their studies at different scales.