Darwin Does 200 Too!

As most of you know, many of the bicentennial Lincoln celebrations reached a particularly energetic pitch this last Thursday as the actual anniversary of his birth even brought our new president to Illinois to take part in an event. You can check out the Lincoln bicentennial events scheduled for Illinois online.

Darwin-Mania

But somewhat overshadowed by all this Lincoln-mania in our country, and especially here in Illinois, is the fact that Lincoln literally shares the day of his birth with one of the few figures from the nineteenth century who could stand toe-to-toe with him in terms of importance: Charles Darwin. That's right, last Thursday was Darwin's bicentennial as well, and it seemed like a good time to draw attention to a party that England's been holding in his honor much the same way we've been enjoying our stovepipe hats and false beards. It's safe to say that England is firmly in the grip of Darwin-mania. Several major celebrations and exhibitions have been planned, many with entertaining and informative online components. Darwin's Big Idea, an exhibit being run through the Natural History Museum in London, offers online visitors a slideshow that gives you glimpses into Darwin's study, a naturalist's tools and perspective of the time, and a lovely model of the H.M.S. Beagle, the ship in which he sailed to the Galapogos. You can also explore the voyage of the Beagle interactively and learn why the collection of mockingbird specimens that Darwin brought back are viewed as so essential to saving the species today. Down's House, Darwin's home during much of his adult life, offers online visitors an opportunity to glimpse a bit of Victorian family life. You can get a more detailed sense of what the great scientist's study and research equipment was like than in the Big Idea exhibit. You can also link off to the Darwin's Landscape Laboratory site that showcases the research gardens of the property, which have been proposed for World Heritage status because of the work Darwin did there, including his significant contributions on the role of worms in soil production. The web site for the landscape laboratory offers panoramic views of several locations as well as wildlife information for the entire year.

The Written Word

For many people in the U.S. today, Charles Darwin has become a kind of scientific boogeyman. This is an unfortunate characterization because Darwin himself pondered deeply over the nature and implications of the kind scientific analysis he was preparing, and in fact took more than 22 years to finalize and publish The Origin of the Species after his ideas originally developed, a period of time that has produced a great deal of scholarly speculation as to its reasons. If you would like to get a better sense of man's work for yourself, you'll find all of his published writings, and many unpublished as well, online as well as his extensive correspondence. Getting this last accomplished has been a particular effort of the bicentennial celebration project. My personal favorite aspect of the correspondence project is the daily quote, often very entertaining, pulled from some given letter. An interesting site that gives readers unfamiliar with Darwin's work some insight into it is this interactive NY Times page that illuminates Darwin's texts with comments from leading biologists and evolutionists discussing why they find particular passages important or moving.

Not Just Some Islands

The basis of Darwin's pivotal works came from his research voyage to the Galapagos Islands. Today the Galapagos Conservation Trust operates to preserve this unique environment, with its ancient tortoises, sea-going iguanas and flightless cormorants. If you are interested, you have the opportunity to adopt an endangered animal or plant, an activity often embraced by children, for whom it makes conservation more "real." Of particular concern, as with any island environment, are invasive species and outside pathogens. The controls put into place for these species in the Galapagos are described in this web site while pathogen control efforts are managed by the Galapagos Genetics Epidemiology and Pathology Laboratory.