Oh--Happy Darwin Day--

From the "On Origin of Species", as read by Richard Dawkins:




What I'll note here, is how diffident, non-strident, open to contradiction, considerate, and how vetted by contemporaries Darwin actually was. Had he not expressed the central idea of the descent of similar species from common ancestors, surely Wallace would have beat him to the punch (which he kind of did, but not as assertively.). As it was, he drew considerable criticism and met it in his own time, and also considered how that criticism would affect himself--and yet realized the strength of his argument and persevered.

His work was a breakthrough in our understanding of our origins. His modern-day detractors suppose that "Darwinism" is a religion--I think he would have been amazed to find that any scientifically-bent person was purporting that the support of his theory found in the fossil record or in DNA was via an acolyte of a religion in his name--but would have only supposed that, like later mathemeticians and physicists built upon the work of Newton, he also contributed to a basis for others to work on. That is, after all, how science is done.

Insofar as the theory of evolution as postulated by Darwin has undermined religious faith, I only can submit that faith does not have the rigor of science, in that it submits not to peer review, not does it ascribe to the potential of falsifiability. We can not reproduce Genesis. We can only witness micro-evolution, or observe modern flora and fauna in their niches. Darwin has the better argument, because he wrote from observation of life. His truth was not revealed, but discovered, slowly and with methodical purpose.

I extoll his virtues for themselves--and also because he's been slandered by the religious. He's been made the saint of atheists, so I'll champion him--because he used his mind, and used it well. That is the best I think we can do.

Darwin was, in short, a great scientist. Not a devil or leader of any cult. But a man who made a clear observation that led to a great deal of study--the good kind. Upon which progress is made. The kind we can revere.