There is a grandeur to this view of life... from so simple a beginning, endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved.
- Charles DarwinI recently went to an exhibition about Darwin, it was fantastic, I had to spend 4.5 hours! Reading and contemplating every single display and still had to be chased out by staff closing the exhibition for the last time. It made me realize what an inspirational figure Charles Darwin is and what strength he had to make but to most of all publish a discovery on par with Galileo's. For the world is still reverberating from his theory.
It may have been a big shift for people to accept that the universe does not revolve around us but our planet amongst it but what Darwin has told us was much closer to home it is not about something outside our own body, it is centered on everything we define ourselves with, our body and our ancestors it makes it impossible to put ourselves above anything else.
I think that our society is still trying to absorb Darwin's theory, together with developments in technology since then we have moved on from being stationery creatures of limited knowledge following our parents footsteps, marrying early and dying early. We now look at images of our planet from outer space and realistically aspire to visit all its continents, have more than one career and individualism is worshiped. Darwin's positioning of the human race as just another group of mamas is key to many world views now, but we as a society still struggle to accept it - a survey in US in 2000-01 found that 57% still said they believed in creationism over evolution.
Here are some quotes from the exhibition I made:
- Erasmus Darwin (Charles' grandfather) was a part of Lunar Society, a group of like minded innovators... they nicknamed
themselves 'lunaticks' and met monthly so they could travel home under a full moon - ...Darwin cheerfully tasted animals previously unknown to a civilized man's pallet. Iguanas yield a white meat he said which is liked by those whose stomachs soar above all prejudices...
- Darwin's approach was simplicity itself. Armed with empty jars and biscuit tins he roamed the woods.
- in the right environment even common daisies can grow into trees
- (Galapagos Islands in this case)
- "it is a contest," he wrote, and "a grain of sand turns the balance."
- "monkeys make humans"
- communicating a word of these thoughts was "like confessing to murder" he had said
- Concerned that Descent
would offend people Darwin initially doubted whether it was "worth publishing" but the public response did not live up to his fears "in fact he made a large profit."
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| The looped path Darwin walked every day while thinking about his work |
