Happy Darwin Day! February 12th marks the anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth. In celebration, I managed to dig up some little known details about his life.
I spoke with David Quammen, author of "The Reluctant Mr. Darwin: An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of his Theory of Evolution" and his newest book, "Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic." He told me some of the things he discovered while researching for "The Reluctant Mr. Darwin."
Take this for example: the last book Darwin published was about earthworms, and he was obsessed with the question of why men have nipples.
To learn more about the father of evolution via natural selection, check out the video above and/or click on the link below. And leave your thoughts in the comments section at the bottom of the page. Come on, talk nerdy to me!
CARA SANTA MARIA: Happy Darwin Day! I'm Cara Santa Maria. Last month, Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) introduced a resolution to Congress designating Feb. 12 as "Darwin Day." Those of us in the know already celebrate this special day, since it marks the anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth in 1809.
RICHARD DAWKINS: What Darwin achieved was nothing less than a complete explanation of the complexity and diversity of all life. And yet it’s one of the simplest ideas that anyone had ever had.
CSM: We all know of Charles Darwin as the father of evolution via natural selection-- Darwinism, as it's commonly known. But there's a lot you may not know about one of the world's most influential scientists. Science writer David Quammen wrote a fascinating biography called "The Reluctant Mister Darwin."
Why reluctant? Well, Darwin didn't publish his ideas about natural selection for 21 years after he first described them in his notebooks. Nobody knows why. But as Quammen told me, "He was a fundamentally conservative man who found himself burdened with a deeply radical idea."
See, Darwin lived at a time when special creation was the only accepted explanation for the diversity of life on Earth. To offer an alternative to accepted religious dogma weighed heavily on him. So much so that he spent the last 20 years of his life writing almost exclusively about plants, in an effort to avoid the crossfire.
Also, according to Quammen, Darwin quote "probably vomited more than any other great scientist in history."
Darwin suffered a vague illness that befell him right around the time when he developed his theory. It’s unclear if the illness was psychosomatic or infectious, but he suffered much of his life with headaches, chronic nausea, and heart palpitations. Some scholars think he may have contracted chagas disease, a tropical parasite, during his travels.
And did you know that Darwin married his first cousin? Her name was Emma Wedgwood, and it was a tumultuous time in his life. He was first developing his theory, and he was getting sick. Everything was uncertain, confusing, frightening. Ever the romantic, Darwin's pro and con list about marriage was telling:
Children — (if it Please God) — Constant companion, (and friend in old age) who will feel interested in one, — object to be beloved and played with. — —better than a dog anyhow. — Home, and someone to take care of house — Charms of music and female chit-chat. — These things good for one’s health. — but terrible loss of time. —
CSM: Now, Darwin was not a religious man. But, he didn't call himself an atheist either. In fact, his dear friend Thomas Huxley invented the term agnostic, and Darwin felt this suited him best. But deep down, I reckon he knew his evolutionary theory would eventually make the myth of special creation a vestige of a forgotten time.
But, some people still resist it. Even today.
I mean modern evidence for Darwin's theory of evolution continues to mount. It's corroborated by paleontology, geology, biology, biochemistry, genetics, ecology, organic chemistry, molecular biology, anthropology -- I could go on. Come on guys, catch up!
Oh, and did you know that Darwin's last published work described just how clam populations disperse from pond to pond? A beetle was sent to him by Francis Crick's grandfather (weirdly), and it had a tiny clam clamped to its leg. This told Darwin that since water beetles fly, they can carry clams into new environments, spreading out their genes and increasing variation.
But what struck me most is a beautiful story Quammen wrote in his book. See, when the beetle arrived, it was still alive. In an effort to study it, Darwin had to kill it. And in his very last scientific endeavor, Darwin added crushed laurel leaves to a jar, knowing that they would release cyanide and put the beetle out of its misery quickly. According to Quammen, Charles Darwin "was a gentleman quite aware of the fact that he'd caused enough suffering."
So happy Darwin Day everybody! Let me know how you celebrate the life of one of our greatest scientific minds with the creatures you love. Come on, Talk Nerdy To Me!
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