The only source for this allegation was an evangelist who called herself "Lady Hope". One doesn't have to be a cynic to think she made this false claim in order to increase her draw (and, just incidentally, her income).
Darwin's family, who was present during his last illness and death, denied the story.
I think if he were alive today he would be open minded enough to admit that his theory falls apart simply on the lack of true transitional fossils which he said were needed to be discovered for his theory to hold water.
This is doubly false: 1) there are many more fossils known now than there were in his day, some of them forming detailed transitional series: examples are the reptile-to-mammal series (see post 513 above), the terrestial artiodactyl-to-whale, hyracotherium (aka eohippus)-to-modern horse, austrelopithcine-to-people (see CoyoteMan's post 238 above), therpod dinosaur-to-bird, and the recent discovery of Tiktaalik (fish-to-amphibian intermediate)
2) the second way it is false is that even if no more fossils had been found since 1859, modern genetic sequencing would have revived the theory, rather than simply confirming it.
And he didn't mean fossils of completed life forms but ones that would show the gradual change over millions of years.
Please explain what you mean here. Use the reptile-mammal series as an example
It would be nice if the TOE proponents would at least admit that truth.
Assuming it is truth.
Courtesy ping to Coyteman
Virginia-American The only source for this allegation was an evangelist who called herself "Lady Hope"
They often expurgate Darwin's religious views when publishing his Autobiography, but he did talk about these. T. A. Goudge remarks that Darwin had difficulty with Christianity, but that he did not write as an atheist.
In the final chapter of the Origin of Species he speaks of laws having been "impressed on matter by the Creator" and of life's powers "having been breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one."
In his linear view of things it appears that Darwin could not see the benevolence of a first cause, yet Darwin also spoke of his seeing how this "wonderful universe, with our conscious selves, arose through chance." As a result, so it seems, he preferred to remain agnostic: "the whole subject is beyond the scope of man's intellect. . . . The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain Agnostic." [cited by T.A. Goudge in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
I was told the Darwin story by a friend who must have gotten bad information but it really doesn't matter. The true transitional fossils showing one life form slowly turning into another simply don't exist. The fossils you guys present as that don't clearly show the slow transitions that evolution calls for. I think that is pretty obvious; if it were not this debate would have been over long ago. There are so many good scientists too, that see the falicy of toe some of which have been posted. Anyways, you guys are compelled to try and make some fossils fit into the TOE for some strange reason. I hope you will have more of an open mind.