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About 20 minutes into their December 2005
Charlie Rose television interview,
Edward
O. Wilson and
James
D. Watson agreed that "Charles Darwin was the most important person who
ever lived on Earth." Watson explained to Charlie that "Darwin was the first
person, using observation and experience, to really put man in his place in
the world."
I'm not surprised that scientists would select
another scientist as the world's greatest person, but in support of their
claim, consider this:
In 1862 Darwin examined a
Madagascan comet orchid with its foot-long nectar tube. He hypothesized
that there had to be an insect with a proboscis just as long to pollinate
it. In the early 20th century, scientists discovered the
giant hawk moth. Its nine-inch proboscis seemed to verify Darwin's
prediction, yet no one had ever claimed to have seen the moth use its
proboscis in a comet orchid. Then, in the early 21st century, the hawk moth
was videotaped doing just what Darwin predicted nearly 150 years earlier.
The great
Muhammad
Ali, named Sportsman of the Century by Sports Illustrated
magazine, separated himself from the world of loud-mouthed braggarts
by actually accomplishing the boxing feats he would predict. Greatness, it
seems, is as much in predicting as it is in accomplishing. Science is
nothing without prediction.
In their interview, Watson and Wilson made a
number of predictions—actually more like speculations—regarding the most
exciting subjects on the science horizon. Among them—discoveries concerning
the human mind and human consciousness. As they discussed what they would
like to know and what we might learn in the coming years, the talk came back
around to Darwin. The great one, as you might expect, had something to say
about human attempts to crack the code of human consciousness. He called
this area of endeavor, "the citadel that cannot be taken by direct assault."
I don't know whether Charlie Rose has
interviewed Mohammad Ali. No Ali interviews are listed on the Charlie Rose
website. But as Charlie concluded his Watson-Wilson interview he said, "I
have done at least 30-thousand interviews and this is one that I am most
proud."
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