February 12, 2007

Selection


Happy Birthday, Mr. Darwin!



Charles Robert Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, England on February 12, 1809.

Young Charles Darwin

The fifth child and second son of the physician Robert Waring Darwin and Susannah Wedgewood, Darwin’s mother died when he was eight years old and he was raised largely by his sister, Caroline. Darwin came from a pedigree of scientists. His grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, was a physician whose ideas on evolution anticipated later theories on the subject. From 1827 -1831, Darwin attended Christ’s College, Cambridge and excelled in the natural sciences, in biology, zoology and geology. After his graduation, Darwin’s botany professor helped arrange for him to serve as naturalist on a British surveying expedition, the H.M.S. Beagle, which would travel around the world from 1831 to 1836. While the voyage served as the cornerstone of Darwin’s thinking, it took over 20 years of careful observation, research and experimentation before he would publish his seminal work on the theory of evolution, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, in 1859. In the interim, Darwin married his cousin Emma Wedgewood and had ten children. In 1851, his second child and eldest daughter, Anne Elizabeth, died of tuberculosis at the age of ten. Annie’s death had a profound influence on Darwin’s thinking about Christianity and natural selection.

Darwin understood that his work would arouse a storm of controversy as it Darwin and son William challenged contemporary beliefs about the creation of life. As a result, he did not hurry to publish Origins, and he did not discuss human evolution there. However, Darwin followed this up by publishing his ideas on the evolution of man, Sexual Selection and the Descent of Man, about a dozen years later, allowing the public time to adjust and accept the theory of evolution.

On April 19, 1882, at approximately 4:00 PM, Charles Darwin died at his long-time residence and research laboratory Down House. Darwin was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey, next to his friend Sir John Herschel, and approximately twenty feet from another giant of scientific thought, Sir Isaac Newton.

From: Visionlearning

9 comments:

Pam said...

Happy Birthday charles!!

I wish we could say we had evolved past this ridiculous nonsense of denying evolution, but alas we have not.

Someone had bought my daughters a book about the creation story, complete with the rib taken from adam and all. I read it to my 5 year old the other night and she said "mom, did that really happen?" and I said "no". I tried to explain metaphor and evolution to her, but I think I will have to wait until she is older for her to really "get it."

Angry Ballerina said...

*drunken singing of "For he's a jolly good fellow"

Anonymous said...

Abraham Lincoln's birtday too today... ;-)

Scientists have their story of how we got here...

Christians have their own...

For me what is important is what I do with the gift of life that I have been given....

I TRY to be a good person,TRY not to judge others and do the best with what I've got.... ;-)

XOXOXOXOXO

Luv ya! ;-)

supergirlest said...

indeed, happy birthday, chuck!

you'll have to change your side bar now "You will learn nothing here, at the best your IQ will drop a little everytime you read this blog"
i learned something here today. :)

still trying to evolve,
kara

hey! are you going to email me so's i can suggest those books? huh? huh? huh?

Anonymous said...

February 13

A date to celebrate..

Honey & I have been together one year today...

Now that's an important date to remember... LOL

Have a great day my friend!!!

XOXOXOXOX

Anonymous said...

BTW... don't we all know where we came from... ;-)

I came from two irresponsible individuals making out.. ;-) that's it... didn't you tell your children that? ;-)

Maybe there is a God after all and I don't have kids to tell them my theory... LOL

Seriously... where we're going should be more important.. does anybody know?

Scientists?? Christians??? Tell me?

FreakyNick said...

angry - I sing best when I'm drunk, luckily, I don't get drunk much anymore. I remember someone saying "don't let him have anymore, he'll start singing".

super - I think you have my email address already, but I'll send you another message.

Nancy - Happy Anniversary for Honey and you.

I agree, No one knows all the facts about creation, so why all the debate? I do know the answers aren't written in books, or someone judging me from a podium.

BBC said...

Still, Darwin did believe in a god like spirituality.

Pam said...

nancy - what happened to your blog girl?

Where we're going is the way of extinction if we don;t stop this global warming.

And "scientist" and "christian" are not mutually exclusive categories. Although I suppose "fundamentalist" and "rational human being" are.