Happy Darwin Day! 2020

Charles Darwin, the greatest scientist who ever lived, was born on this day in 1809 [Darwin still spurs tributes, debates] [Happy Darwin Day!] [Darwin Day 2017]. Darwin is mostly famous for two things: (1) he described and documented the evidence for evolution and common descent and (2) he provided a plausible scientific explanation of evolution—the theory of natural selection. He put all this in a book, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection published in 1859—a book that spurred a revolution in our understanding of the natural world. (You can still buy a first edition copy of the book but it will cost you several hundred thousand dollars.)

Modern evolutionary theory has advanced well beyond Darwin's theory but he still deserves to be honored for being the first to explain evolution and promote it in a way that convinced others. Here's one passage from the introduction to Origin of Species.

Although much remains obscure, and will long remain obscure, I can entertain no doubt, after the most deliberate and dispassionate study of which I am capable, that the view which most naturalists entertain, and which I formerly entertained—namely, that each species has been independently created—is erroneous. I am fully convinced that species are not immutable; but that those belonging to what are called the same genera are lineal descendants of some other and generally extinct species, in the same manner as the acknowledged varieties of any one species are the descendants of that species. Furthermore, I am convinced that Natural Selection has been the main but not exclusive means of modification.

Here's a quotation that explains the title of this blog. It's from Janet Browne's excellent biography, Charles Darwin: The Power of Place (p. 10).

Although his Beagle experiences were still important to him and always carried due weight in his writings, and his particular insight into nature remained undimmed, these home-based researches were the hidden triumph of his theory of evolution. His family setting, his house and garden, the surrounding Kent countryside, and his own sense of himself at the heart of his life he had created and the property he owned provided the finely crafted examples of adaptation in action that lifted his work far out of the ordinary. His thinking path, the path he called the Sandwalk that skirted the edge of a copse at the bottom of Down House garden, became the private source of his conviction that his theory was true—true if only he could show it. (My emphasis - LAM)

(Part of this post is a copy of a post that originally appeared in 2018)

---

Photo credit: The photo of Charles and me is from a Darwin Day 2009 article in the Toronto Star [Darwin still spurs tributes, debates].