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Interesting Darwin
Compiled & edited by Jahed Ahmed
Published on Darwin Day (February 12, 2006)
Darwin had a plan to enter the ministry prior to his fateful voyage on HMS Beagle in 1831. Among other things, he carried a copy of Bible with him in his voyage. He was 22 at that time.
Darwin�s father, a wealthy country doctor, opposed his trip on Beagle.
Emma, Darwin�s wife & an ardent believer, thought that Darwin�s destination was plainly hell.
Biologists and Scientists don�t use the term �Darwinism� because of the misleading connotations associated with it. Darwinism �is a rhetorical device to make evolution seem like a kind of faith, like �Maoism�,� says Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson. Thus it�s the anti-evolution groups who make frequent utterances of the term.
�Survival of the fittest� is a phrase that Darwin never used himself. The phrase, although initially coined to characterize the Darwin�s theory, has taken on connotations of social and economic competition that Darwin never intended.
Darwin started writing �The Origin of Species� as early as 1830s but held publishing until 1859, when he decided to publish it after learning that a younger scientist, Alfred Russel Wallace, had come up with a similar theory. One of the main reasons behind such a unusual delay in informing the world about his remarkable and splendid discovery was Darwin being afraid that his thoughts on evolution would be akin to �confessing a murder�, as Darwin wrote to a friend.
Darwin was profoundly influenced by Thomas Malthus and his theory that predators, disease and a finite food supply place a limit on populations that would otherwise multiply indefinitely.
In his novel �The Darwin Conspiracy�, best-selling author John Darnton playfully inverts history by portraying Darwin as a schemer who dispatched a rival into a volcano, and stole the ideas that made him famous.
Darwin has replaced Charles Dickens on the British 10-pound note.
In 1996, John Paul II, the chief of the Vatican, proclaims there is no essential conflict between Darwin�s theory and Catholicism.
Although Darwin struggled with questions of faith his whole life, he ultimately described himself as an �Agnostic.�
Less than half of all Americans believe in evolution.
Source: Newsweek, November 28, 2005
Jahed Ahmed writes from New York, USA. He is one of the co-moderators of Mukto-Mona.