Fossil champion fights Chinese ignorance of Darwinian theory
Palaeontologist promotes evolution science in its pure form, at home and globally, capitalising on China's contribution to the fossil record
Professor Zhou Zhonghe, one of China’s most respected and experienced palaeontologists, is perhaps best known for his discovery of the world’s earliest bird fossils. As chairman of the International Palaeontological Association (IPA) and director of the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology, he is as passionate about promoting understanding of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution as he is against the abusive use of the theory in China and abroad.
How does fossil evidence from China support Darwin’s theory?
Darwin proposed the theory more than a century and a half ago, when the fossil evidence was quite limited. Since then a large number of fossils have been unearthed and in recent decades China has contributed a significant proportion to the growth of global stock. In the early days, because of the lack of fossil evidence, the evolutionary biological theory presented numerous uncertainties, and even Darwin himself was sometimes confused. For instance, he feared that his theory would be toppled by the Cambrian explosion [an outburst of complex organisms over a relatively short period about 542 million years ago]. In his time the Cambrian explosion looked like an isolated event that contradicted evolution by natural selection, but fossils from Early Cambrian sites in China, such as Chengjiang in Yunnan and Wengan in Guizhou, provided transitional species that filled missing gaps to support Darwin’s theory. Darwin was also confused about the seemingly sudden appearance of angiosperms [flowering plants] in the fossil record, but an angiosperm fossil was discovered in China that dated from the Late Jurassic [between 160 million and 145 million years ago], a crucial piece of evidence on plant evolution. All fossil records in China support Darwin’s theory of evolution. There are absolutely no challenges.
But the challenges to Darwin have never ceased. Why?
Some people oppose the theory of evolution on religious grounds. They believe God created everything. Others challenge it because they misunderstand Darwin … But the further science advances, the more the theory of evolution is strengthened.
How strong is public acceptance of Darwin’s theory in China?