I am launching my third year in this profession of column-writing for abs-cbnnews.com with a new name for this space – Ways of Species. The name is inspired by Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species.

This earth-shaking book is celebrating the sesquicentennial anniversary of its publication. Forgive me for that difficult word – sesquicentennial. It simply means 150 years. I picked it up from a friend, Dr. Emy Liwag, who is busy helping organize events for Ateneo de Manila University’s celebration of its 150th year.

Darwin’s full book title is also sesquicentennial-long. It goes: Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life.

Darwin knew his thesis on natural selection would be thwarted by the believers and guardians of the most fundamental truth-claim of the Christian faith: the genesis. In fact, it was also about God him/herself, as the story of creation is premised on a Creator.

That’s why Darwin postponed writing it for 20 years. The seed of the idea was planted in the young, amateur naturalist as he moved from coast to coast of South America aboard the Beagle. In the next decades, he pursued his obsession, studying plant and animal breeds and discoursing with peers.

Then he learned that another explorer, Alfred Russel Wallace, was getting to the same conclusion. Darwin hurriedly wrote up his volume.

The Origin of Species is widely credited for providing a framework with which to view nature and build a system of knowledge as more data were collected. In other words, it helped put sense to what was being observed.

True enough, the hypothesis has survived 150 years of field and laboratory tests, and tremendous leaps in scientific technology. Scientists today are able to examine the power of natural selection at the molecular level. In contrast, Darwin’s method relied on what was visible to the eye.

Darwin’s thesis quashed the dominant thinking that change happens in progressive ascension leading to complexity and perfection. This line of thought is similar to what social scientists call the modernization theory.

The notion presumed that societies moved from primitive to civilized, with the latter the bearer of all positive attributes. It explained differences and guided policies, setting off a wide range of ill-fated “modern” projects that were to save the primitive man from his way of life.

Darwin proved that in biology, the more accurate model is not a ladder but a tree with many branches. That’s why he sketched a “tree of life” in his book.

The theory of evolution has, in addition, allowed scientists to plot how species are related.

While reading up on mangoes, I got a kick learning that mangos are a close kin of cashews -- the way humans and chimpanzees are, genomes-wise. In which case, I imagined the cashew fruit, with the seed perched on the fleshy meat, must have started out as an ectopically-pregnant mango (or its ancestor). The difference spelled survival for both fruits as their descendants’ ascendants branched out into two species under presumably different circumstances and adaptation strategies.

Darwin’s thesis departed from the dominant geologic theory that credited much of Earth’s history to cataclysmic events. He reversed the theory and applied the idea of gradual change to animals instead of rocks.

It’s now believed that “natural selection” can also happen in compressed time during difficult times such as droughts and disasters. Physical, presumably also genetic, change can actually occur in a matter of years instead of eons.

Despite the vast amount of scientific data inspired by Darwinism and bolstered by the science of genetics, many questions about the natural world remain unanswered.

For example, it hasn’t been fully explained how minute, individual changes become a group or system-wide thing.

This is a problem shared by other scientific endeavors. Just how can the opinion of a sample of 1,000 represent that of a million population with proven accuracy – or does it? How do individual attitudes and behavior towards another sex or other humans, certain smells, food, violence, etc., converge to become a group characteristic that is passed on to the next generation?

Because there is still so much to unravel, there’s still a big demand for God or Allah or the supernatural among men and women, to help with life questions, put sense to unwanted changes, or to share with their glory or guilt.

Of course it is also the case that many others are not even asking the questions and find comfort in handed-down beliefs.

That’s why for most people, a sesquicentennial since the dawning of the age of reason, the ultimate explanation still lies in the Designer, not in the design itself.

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Why am I changing column space-name? I thought “Eyes See” was problematic. My eyesight wasn’t good to begin with, and it’s getting even worse. Also, Katrina Legarda already has Kat’s Eye and she’s been writing here longer than I am. And, you bet, even with one eye, she’s sharp.

“Eyes see” was meant also as a pun to “I see”. I imagined readers would be nodding their heads, saying “I see” after reading my piece. Anyway, now that I’m discarding it after a six week-break from this writing assignment, I hope I won’t receive letters addressed to “Ms. See” anymore.

“Ways of Species” would definitely give me a lot of elbow room to take a jab at my favorite species, the homo sapiens.

Especially the variety called criminal geniuses.