Posted on 06/03/2009 8:42:23 PM PDT by gobucks
Charles Darwin’s discovery of evolution is common knowledge but Darwin the person is barely known. Even on his 200th birth anniversary this year — he was born in England on Feb. 12, 1809 — much has been said about his works but little about his inner life of contrasts.
Darwin loved the natural world from childhood. He roamed the wilderness to study insects while neglecting Greek and Latin, the essential subjects. He said of his schooling, “I was considered by all my masters and by my Father as a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard in intellect.”
Sent to medical school at age 16, he quit after seeing an operation on a child. Anesthesia was not yet introduced, and frightened patients stayed awake while surgeons sawed through their legs. His father was upset with him for leaving medicine, as fathers are when their offspring disappoint them. Charles was warned that he would be a disgrace.
He then went to Cambridge University to be a minister. There he found a mentor who would change his life, the Rev. John Henslow, a botanist. He and a geology professor taught Darwin how to observe and interpret nature’s ways.
After Cambridge, while Darwin was pondering entering the ministry, Henslow recommended him as a naturalist for a British survey ship, HMS Beagle, which planned an around-the-globe voyage. Darwin’s father was opposed, calling it a waste of time, but Charles prevailed with the help of his maternal uncle.
After four years, in 1835, the Beagle landed in the Galapagos Archipelago in the Pacific. What Darwin saw there changed our concept of biology. For millions of years, the animals and birds in these isolated islands had evolved in their unique way to survive and propagate. And they had no fear of humans. How and why did these creatures become the way they did? These questions germinated the idea of evolution in Darwin’s mind.
At 29, Darwin married Emma Wedgwood, his first cousin. The marriage saved his life. Emma was 30. An educated woman, she spoke French, German and Italian. And despite their differences in belief — she was a devoted Christian while he turned agnostic — she read Darwin’s papers before they were sent out. Emma, however, is not given the recognition she deserves for supporting her husband’s works, and accepting the demands of his almost constant illness. Moreover, she bore 10 children; the last one, born when she was 48, had Down syndrome.
Darwin’s favorite child, Annie, died of tuberculosis when she was 10. His anguish expresses a father’s loss and his deep love for a child: “Her face now rises before me ... her whole form radiant with the pleasure of giving pleasure ... her dear face bright all the time, with sweetest smiles. ... We have lost the joy of the household, and the solace of our old age.” This loss, some say, turned him into an agnostic.
Darwin’s radical idea — evolution of species over millions of years — starkly contradicted the doctrine on creation. Fearing the church’s hostile reactions, he waited about 20 years before publishing his seminal book, “The Origin of Species,” in 1859. The book transformed science and human thought forever.
Though zealots impede teaching evolution in school, some churches now believe that evolution is compatible with faith. Zealotry diminishes both religion and science.
Why is Darwin universally remembered while other original minds have remained obscure? It’s not just because of his big idea on evolution and change. After all, the idea was not his alone. Another naturalist, Alfred Wallace, came to the same conclusion as that of Darwin. Even philosopher Heraclitus said 2,500 years ago, “There is nothing permanent except change.”
What has kept Darwin alive is the power of his observations and his writings. He has integrated diverse fields of knowledge — including geology, zoology, botany, marine biology, horticulture, animal husbandry and history — to make compelling points for evolution.
We are part of nature, not above it. The poetic conclusion of “The Origin of Species” pictures our kinship to nature: “Contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and ... reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other ... have all been produced by laws acting around us.”
snip...You ascribe to me a philosophy I have not expressed. Then you proceed to attack this straw philosophy.
Spirited: You most certainly have expressed it. Your stated goal of ‘blurring distinctions’ is the prescription of Monism. Some examples of Monistic philosophy/ideology here in America are the following:
1. Materialism, empiricism
2. Progressivism
3. Progressivized Christianity (aka liberal theology)
4. Socialism in its every variant
5. New Age
6. Darwinism
All of the above are grounded on Naturalism-—the idea of a closed rather than open system—and have the effect of, in your own words, blurring distinctions by reducing all things to ‘one.’ This is Monism.
Do you get to add me to your collection if you pin me down?
Or is this merely your way of dismissing anyone with whom you disagree?
I assure you, if in your amoeboid hunger you are trying to encompass my thinking within your limited understanding of it, you are spreading yourself too thin.
I have merely revealed the proposition underlying your stated goal of ‘blurring distinctions.’ Your immediate reaction has been scoffing and anger. The question now is, “Why does the truth make you angry?”
It ain’t about me.
I’ve been enjoying my read of Gopnik’s book “Angels and Ages”. He makes Darwin, and his birthday buddy Abraham Lincoln, really come alive with his details.
He speaks of John Brown, Mark Twain, Lincoln, and other contemporaries of the two men on whom he focused. He arranges these characters like pieces on a chessboard, showing the work he went through to research the book, even before the game begins.
That statement seems self-refuting.
Cordially,
"That statement seems self-refuting."
Some people are easily confused.
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