CHENNAI: “All life is genetically related, and biodiversity is the product of evolution,” said Dayanandan, renowned botanist, on Sunday, underlining the powerful story of evolution and throwing light on the molecular science used to trace the history of evolution of the DNA.Addressing the gathering at the symposium on Science and Secularism organised by the Free Thinkers, Tamil Nadu chapter of the Nirmuktha foundation that focuses on promoting free thought through science and logic, Dayanandan highlighted the different aspects of evolution in lecture titled ‘Chimpanzee is our cousin, so is the Neem tree’. “There are 500 human genomes that we shared with all other organisms, since we all need these basic genes for survival,” he explained.Stating the significance of the understanding the need to understand the history of evolution, he said, “Scientists have now found that we are evolving 100 times faster than we were 10,000 years ago. In fact 7 percent of our genes have evolved in the last 5000 years.”Underlining the contribution of evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin in understanding the origin of human life, he said,” While Darwin said that the humans may have originated from Africa, since his theory was that the great apes lived there, there were no fossils at his time to prove this idea.” But since then, many fossils of species such as Homo Erectus and Homo Habilis have been found in Africa that strengthened the idea .This just shows that it is possible to trace the history of evolution with DNA, he added.The story of evolution can be explained through the analytical tools of molecular biology, he emphasised.“It is now possible to find ideas about our common ancestors using the molecular tools. While a gecko looks like a crocodile, the crocodile is more related to a bird than a Gecko according to molecular data,” he explained.He also enlightened the audience on the aspect of skin colour variation that has been dated back by scientists to 60,000 years.” Natural selection has been the selective force in deciding the skin colour of humans,” he said.Similarly, he explained the concept of natural selection that acts as a selective force in triggering evolution, with the example of the enzyme Amylase that is requires to digest starch.“While chimpanzees have only one gene copy of Amylase, some human beings have ten copies of this gene because we have started consuming more starch,” he said.Speaking to the City Express, Dayanandan underlined the core theme of his lecture, “Science is not dogmatic; it is a liberated view that came out of evolution.”
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