What a person believes affects how they interpret the world around them, their worldview in the popular usage. And how the world molds their beliefs.
And young Master Darwin did a great deal of interpreting, assigning of causes to the effects he observed, viewing the world through the lens his world had ground.
Had Darwin been a profoundly religious man and a firm believer in the truth and inspiration of the Bible that would be just as important to know of him and how it affected him.
You are absolutely correct. He came up with a theory of origins (at least a theory of origins of the already living) that jived with his worldview. And it just so happens that the predictions Darwin made based on that worldview are now being falsified so fast that it is making the evos collective heads spin!
Uh, when we bring up the beliefs of the chief proponents of ID, you and metmom always say that what they believe does not matter.
And young Master Darwin did a great deal of interpreting, assigning of causes to the effects he observed, viewing the world through the lens his world had ground.
Perhaps...however, it is, at best, a moot point, as the question at hand is not the effect of Darwin's beliefs upon his worldview, but the effect (or lack thereof) of his beliefs upon the scientific validity of his discoveries.
Atheists do not float around willy-nilly, unaffected by gravity, simply because Sir Isaac Newton believed in God and they don't.