Today is the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin which makes me want to bake a cake and have a little party. Which makes me think, I should celebrate the birthdays of all my favorite books.
But since it is The Origin of Species it'd probably be more appropriate to dig around the leaves and mud and give a little reverence to all the wonderfully complex and under appreciated lives duking it out around us. Reuben helped me out and made sure we took this moment a few times on the walk we went on earlier today.
The thing I really love about Charles Darwin is that he was a man who was able to appreciate the glory of the smallest and lowliest of organisms. He marveled at beetles. He was fascinated by worms and snails. He spent 8 years devoted slavishly to barnacles. Barnacles. The creatures who sit on rocks. Then they die. How can such dull little organisms capture anyone's attention?
That's the wonderful thing about Darwin, he's a good writer, and he's willing to explain why a creature that spends it's whole life sitting on a rock, basically doing it's best to be a rock is a miracle.
Because Darwin, in his genius, was able to notice that the mortal existence of a barnacle and a human being fall under the same universal laws, are subject to the same forces, and consequently their lives are fundamentally relevant to one another.
And that is the miracle of modern biology, it's interconnectedness. Everything relates and matters to one another and that is what Darwin recognized and taught the world.
And just in case you don't want to follow any of the links, here's an excerpt from the NPR story that I really enjoyed:
Darwin sent a copy of his book to one of the leading members of the Church of England, the Rev. Charles Kingsley.
Kingsley wrote back to Darwin: "It's just as noble a conception of God to think that he created animals and plants that then evolved, that were capable of self-development, as it is to think that God has to constantly create new forms and fill in the gaps that he's left in his own creation." Clearly pleased with this comment, Darwin included it in future editions of On the Origins of Species.
The God I believe in is BIG on development so Darwin's description on how the Earth works, works for me.
3 comments:
keep an eye out for the essay I'm emailing you on Darwin. Happy Thanksgiving. B
Hey did you hear the NPR piece on Darwin where he and another scientist were in a race to find a certain elusive animal (okay this is where it gets sketchy because I have bad recall) and they both were not having any luck and then Darwin is eating some meat that one of the guys with him had cooked and realized it was that animal so he picked through the bones and tried to recreate it to send back to England? Ha.
I'm not positive but I think he was after a South American Rhea. Naturalists accidently eating their subjects is one of my pet joys.
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