The Origin of The Origin of Species

The Royal Ontario Museum is currently featuring an exhibit on the great Charles Darwin called "Darwin: The Evolution Revolution". There was a lot of interesting information there, but all in the form of words (essentially you are there to read a novel that has been blown up and placed on walls instead of the regularly consumed book form). The artifacts were mostly things like facsimiles of letters that had been written to or from Darwin.

I'm not sure that museums really do it for me. There's nothing that could be more interesting than Darwin's contributions, but as I'd remarked following the experience... I don't feel any closer to Darwin than I did before the exhibit. Most of what I read I had read before, but that's fine. I expected to experience the evolution revolution. Likely an expectations problem rather than a delivery problem, but a reality of meetings and all experiences, regardless.

To draw a parallel between the theory of evolution and meetings, I would start with the selection process that finds individuals invited to meetings or not. It's a flawed process that can't isn't worth finch dung compared to natures example. It's usually the usual suspects that garner invitation (those that are closest to the issue) and the squeakiest wheels (those that bitch the most if their not invited). Nature shows that an ecosystem relies on diversity for success. We need to always consider diversity when strategically selecting meeting participants.

To draw what I consider to be an interesting parallel between the world's reaction to the theory and meetings, I would start with the defense. Darwin did little to refute the challenges from religous, scientific, and other factions. It was strong supporting voices from others in the scientific community that rallied to defend the Origin of Species. Likewise, the most successful and accepted notions presented in meetings are often the ones that are advocated by people besides the proposing party. Unfortunately, the real master politickers have mastered this phenomenon, and plant seeds for other people to carry out their bidding before the meeting begins.

A monkey riding on a donkey. That was worth the admission.