Yesterday was the birthday of two of the most famous men in history: Abraham Lincoln in Central Kentucky in 1809 and Charles Darwin in Shrewsbury, England in the same year. As Lincoln was born into poverty, Darwin was born into a wealthy family. His father was a society doctor and financier.
Darwin's father sent him to medical school in Edinborough, so he could become a doctor like himself. But young Darwin couldn't stand the sight of blood, and found his lectures boring. So he went off to the seashore to help a naturalist study marine life.
Darwin senior didn't like this, but being a kindly father, he sent Charles to Cambridge University to study for the ministry. The were lots of naturalist parsons in those days so it seemed like a good solution. Darwin did well in his studies, and spent lots of time in the field collecting beetles.
Before he could bury himself in a rural parsonage, he was offered the job as naturalist on the survey ship Beagle. While the ship surveyed the South American coast, Darwin went ashore and studied the flora, fauna, and geology of the land. Darwin was only 22 at the time and was not a qualified naturalist. But he knew enough and had a keen eye and collected lots of specimens for the naturalists back in London.
The expedition was supposed to last two years. Darwin's father thought it would be a waste of time. Also, Darwin was expected to pay his own way. Another family member convinced Darwin's father to fund the trip and let Charles have an adventure. The voyage lasted five years instead of two.
Ideas of evolution had been buzzing around for years. The ancient Greeks wrote about fossils, but thought they came from animals already in existence. In 1699 a Danish scientist claimed the fossils came from extinct animals, but it took another fifty years for a French scientist to prove extinction was real. At the same time, other scientists were looking at fossilized seashells on the tops of mountains and theorized the face of the earth was still changing, but very, very slowly.
Darwin experienced an earthquake in Chile and noticed mussel beds lifted above the high tide level afterwards. "Hmmmm," he must have said to himself. The Beagle arrived back in England in 1836. Thanks to the reports he had sent back, young Darwin was immediately accepted into the highest ranks of European naturalists.
Darwin's ever supportive father set him up as a gentleman naturalist. He worked hard meeting with other naturalists, and clarifying his thoughts on natural selection. He grew fond of his cousin Emma Wedgewood, but before proposing to her, drew up a list of pros and cons. Among the pros: "Constant companion and company in old age...better than a dog anyhow." Cons: "Less money for books," and "terrible loss of time." It was a very happy marriage and Charles and Emma had ten children.
Darwin knew evolution was real but he needed a theory to make it believable to other scientists. After lots of study and talk and thought, he came up with the theory of natural selection. He noticed how farmers selected livestock for certain traits and realized nature did the same thing. But why did nature do that?
After 15 more years of study, talking, and thinking he had his answer. His several year’s long study of barnacles gave him the insight that species change in response to changes in the environment. In 1859, he finally published On The Origin of Species. He left out the parts about human origin. He was not ready yet for that fight. Other scientists wrote books supporting evolution though some disagreed with Darwin's ideas about natural selection.
In 1871 Darwin published The Descent of Man, in which he said man was an ape. Science would later rephrase that to say apes and man shared a common ancestor which didn't make it any more palatable for some people. Darwin's last book was on earthworms. I don't know if science at that time understood that man also shared a common ancestor with worms.
Darwin died on April 19, 1888 at the age of 73. His heart disease may have been caused by a bug bite received way back during the voyage of the Beagle. He is buried in Westminster Abbey near Isaac Newton. I'll cover Abraham Lincoln on his birthday next year.
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| Take a right at the fork, man. |
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