Darwin's Birthday Renews Evolution Debate
Pete Schaff
Issue date: 3/24/09 Section: News
Soon after, he released his work entitled On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. In the book, Darwin set out "one long argument" of detailed observations, inferences, and consideration of anticipated objections, despite popular opinion. His only allusion to human evolution was the understatement that "light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history." His theory is simply stated in the introduction:
"As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive, and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form."
There was little immediate attention to the announcement of the theory but the book aroused international interest, spurning less controversy than had greeted the popular Vestiges of Creation; however, its first review claimed it made a creed of the "men from monkeys" idea from Vestiges. The Church of England's response was mixed. Darwin's old Cambridge tutors Sedgwick and Henslow dismissed the ideas, but liberal clergymen interpreted natural selection as an instrument of God's design, with the cleric Charles Kingsley seeing it as "just as noble a conception of Deity".
Thirty out of 50 students polled stated that they were solid evolutionists. Some like LaMarche went even as far as ridiculing creationism and its ideals.
Though close, evolutionists at Mercy outnumber creationists by a margin of only twenty percent, according to the poll. When asked why she believed in the creation story written in Genesis as opposed to evolution, history major Annette Jackson stated that it was "God pulling on her spirit to believe in him."
"As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive, and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form."
There was little immediate attention to the announcement of the theory but the book aroused international interest, spurning less controversy than had greeted the popular Vestiges of Creation; however, its first review claimed it made a creed of the "men from monkeys" idea from Vestiges. The Church of England's response was mixed. Darwin's old Cambridge tutors Sedgwick and Henslow dismissed the ideas, but liberal clergymen interpreted natural selection as an instrument of God's design, with the cleric Charles Kingsley seeing it as "just as noble a conception of Deity".
Thirty out of 50 students polled stated that they were solid evolutionists. Some like LaMarche went even as far as ridiculing creationism and its ideals.
Though close, evolutionists at Mercy outnumber creationists by a margin of only twenty percent, according to the poll. When asked why she believed in the creation story written in Genesis as opposed to evolution, history major Annette Jackson stated that it was "God pulling on her spirit to believe in him."
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professional resumes
posted 12/30/09 @ 8:59 AM EST
Charles Darwin was an outstanding scientist.
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