Darwin Was Right About the Carnivorous Plants, 150 Years Later

A scientist looks at a plant, notices something strange, and writes down a theory nobody can prove yet. Then a century and a half passes. Then someone with better tools finally checks his math, and he was right the whole time. That is basically what just happened with Charles Darwin and his carnivorous plants.

Back in the 1870s, Darwin noticed that certain plants, like sundews and butterworts, seemed to be digesting insects. He guessed they were using enzymes to break down the bugs, similar to how our own stomachs work. He wrote a whole book about it, called Insectivorous Plants, and plenty of people at the time thought it was a strange thing for a serious scientist to spend his time on. Plants eating animals? It sounded almost silly.

It was not silly. A recent study, using modern tools Darwin could not have dreamed of, confirmed that these plants really do use digestive enzymes strikingly similar to the ones in animal stomachs, evolved independently, plant by plant, to do a very animal-like job. Darwin’s hunch, the one people quietly doubted, turned out to be exactly right.

Why this is such a good story for kids

I think what gets me about this isn’t the plants, honestly. It’s the timeline. Darwin never got to see himself proven right. He made a careful observation, tested it as best he could with the tools of his day, wrote it down, and then let it go out into the world to be doubted, argued with, and eventually, generations later, confirmed. That is a strange kind of patience to ask a kid to understand. It’s a strange kind of patience for me to understand, if I’m honest.

My son is not particularly patient. Whose kid is, at that age? He wants to know if he’s right now, not in a hundred and fifty years. But I think there’s something worth pointing to here: being doubted doesn’t mean being wrong. Sometimes it just means you’re early.

The part I try to model, badly

I go back and forth on how hard to push curiosity versus how much to just let it happen on its own. Carrot or stick, again, the same old question I never quite settle. If I hover and quiz him about every bug he pokes at in the yard, does that kill the wonder? If I say nothing at all, does the moment just evaporate?

What I’ve landed on, for now, is smaller than a strategy. When he notices something odd, I try to just say