Today almost 150 years after the Origin of Species first appeared, evolution theory is again in the news and stirring passions. Charles Darwin appears on magazine covers, a scientific superstar if an embattled one. But a fascinating new exhibition at New York's American Museum of Natural History looks at the man himself and his own intellectual evolution and shows him as in some ways an unlikely revolutionary who so feared the consequences of his own discoveries he kept them secret for decades. Niles Eldredge, an evolution theorist himself, is the curator of the exhibition and author of the companion book."I think it is almost an unparalleled opportunity to understand the essence of creativity in somebody. It wasn't just on a high; it was a long process of letting nature soak in, so to speak, and then have it sort of bubble up slowly into his conscious brain when he came up with the idea of evolution. "
Charles Darwin was born into 19th century British privilege, raised largely by his sisters after his mother died when he was eight. His one passion as a youth was collecting beetles(insect). Beyond that, he showed little direction and his father despaired.
"He was worried that the kid wasn't showing any sort of focus. He said you care about nothing but shooting dogs and rat catching, and you shall be a disgrace to yourself and to your entire family. "
"Oh, that's very low expectations for this young fellow. "
"So his dad says, okay, so let's put you off to Cambridge, take an undergraduate degree there and become a clergyman so you have some respectable thing to do and you can collect all the beetles you want while you are being a country curie. "
Hard to imagine now Charles Darwin, the country clergyman. Instead, while studying botany at Cambridge, he received an invitation that would change his life and much else, to be an unpaid naturalist on HMS Beagle, with a mission to explore and collect specimens along the coast of South America. " When he got this invitation, of course he jumped at it."
Darwin took his bible with him, but the trip he later wrote 'determined my whole career.' The would-be clergyman became a committed naturalist.
