DARWIN EXHIBIT AT AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
From an NPR Science Friday radio interview:
In 1831, the young naturalist Charles Darwin set off on a five-year sail around the world that would profoundly change not just his life, but the course of science as well. Commissioned to collect samples of flora and fauna from the HMS Beagle’s ports of call, Darwin left England firmly believing, like everyone else, that God had created every living thing on Earth exactly as it appeared. His specimens told him otherwise, however, and when the Beagle docked in England, core tenets of the theory of evolution had been shaped.
Yet it would be 20 years before he would make his ideas public; Darwin feared that disclosing his radical views would be the equivalent of committing career suicide and was moved to publish only when another scientist independently arrived at the same conclusions as he. That event sparked a debate that continues to this day.
A new exhibit at New York City’s American Museum of Natural History explores Darwin’s personal evolution from devout Christian to confirmed agnostic and how the conservative attitudes of Victorian society affected his professional life, his personal life, and even his health. It mines the genius and the mundane of Darwin and unearths details that form a portrait of a brilliant thinker, a devoted father, and a man so afraid of criticism that others had to speak for him.
Go to science essay #2.1: Focus on Science and Your Self
Go to brainpower index: Interactive Index of Factual Ideas