DARWIN ONLINE

Good New Yorker article on Darwin this week...

if darwin could be asked now , he probably would not be surprised to learn that his works are available on the internet .


by the way , another website that i find interesting and even entertaining is ...THE BRITISH MUSEUM... website - great stuff for kids :wink: of all ages - but also for serious scholars .
hbg

I'm glad you posted this thread, Hamburger--i saw something about this one television the other night (BBC?) and thought i should start a thread . . . and then promptly forgot to do so.

Thank you.

set :
yes , it was on the BBC re-brodcast on CBC at 6:3o pm earlier this week .
we usually try to at least catch part of the re-broadcast - BBC always seems to have something interesting .
hbg

I frequently watch BBC World while having my dinner.

a neat little feature article on ...CHARLES DARWIN... by the BBC .

i have to say it : BBC is surely not afraid to cause a bit of a stir now and then ... i enjoy that !
hbg

from the article :
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"Heated debate

One poll, commissioned by CBS News, revealed that more than half of the US population believes that God created human beings in their present form.

The same poll indicates that some 48% of respondents think that this divine creation event occurred "within the last 10,000 years".

When taken with others commissioned by CNN and NBC, this poll constitutes the clearest evidence yet that the burgeoning American evangelical movement is using its considerable influence to re-educate its adherents.


The Galapagos Islands spurred Darwin to think further about creation
With 57% of Americans believing the Biblical account of creation and with 44% also saying that the world was created in six days, scientific rationalists and people of faith who believe in evolution, including the Anglican and Catholic churches, seemingly face a new challenge."

Charles Darwin was not a biologist but naturalist. His theories, which he came up with the use of a primitive microscope, really don't interest me...

from the BBC website :
"Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882)


Charles Darwin © Darwin was a British scientist who laid the foundations of the theory of evolution and transformed the way we think about the natural world.

Charles Robert Darwin was born on 12 February 1809 in Shrewsbury, Shropshire into a wealthy and well-connected family. His maternal grandfather was china manufacturer Josiah Wedgwood, while his paternal grandfather was Erasmus Darwin, one of the leading intellectuals of 18th century England.

Darwin himself initially planned to follow a medical career, and studied at Edinburgh University but later switched to divinity at Cambridge. In 1831, he joined a five year scientific expedition on the survey ship HMS Beagle.

At this time, most Europeans believed that the world was created by God in seven days as described in the bible. On the voyage, Darwin read Lyell's 'Principles of Geology' which suggested that the fossils found in rocks were actually evidence of animals that had lived many thousands or millions of years ago. Lyell's argument was reinforced in Darwin's own mind by the rich variety of animal life and the geological features he saw during his voyage. The breakthrough in his ideas came in the Galapagos Islands, 500 miles west of South America. Darwin noticed that each island supported its own form of finch which were closely related but differed in important ways.

On his return to England in 1836, Darwin tried to solve the riddles of these observations and the puzzle of how species evolve. Influenced by the ideas of Malthus, he proposed a theory of evolution occurring by the process of natural selection. The animals (or plants) best suited to their environment are more likely to survive and reproduce, passing on the characteristics which helped them survive to their offspring. Gradually, the species changes over time.

Darwin worked on his theory for 20 years. After learning that another naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, had developed similar ideas, the two made a joint announcement of their discovery in 1858. In 1859 Darwin published 'On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection'.

The book was extremely controversial, because the logical extension of Darwin's theory was that homo sapiens was simply another form of animal. It made it seem possible that even people might just have evolved - quite possibly from apes - and destroyed the prevailing orthodoxy on how the world was created. Darwin was vehemently attacked, particularly by the Church. However, his ideas soon gained currency and have become the new orthodoxy.

Darwin died on 19 April 1882 and was buried in Westminster Abbey."
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was darwin a biologist or a naturalist ?
does it really matter ?
at least he established that humankind is closely related to monkeys - that's what matters most to me :wink: .

my mirror image :

hbg

...CHARLES DARWIN...