Darwin Misunderstood

Today is the 200th birth anniversary of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the introduction of his theory of Evolution.

Darwin's works are largely misunderstood according to many biologists. And many magazine articles of late have made a huge point of this.

Once I heard an interesting comparison between the Bible and Darwin's works -- they were both the least read books on Earth.

And both are also the most misunderstood.

I think the most powerful misunderstanding that I once held was that evolution had little evidence to support it. I've come to change my mind about this. To me, the evidence is very convincing and plentiful. Another misconception I had was that Darwin's work supported slavery. I have also heard often that Darwin believed in slavery and expressed this in his works.

But this BBC news article says something quite different. Darwin seems to have abhorred slavery and quietly hoped his work would help imply how wrong slavery truly was.

Even if you don't agree with evolution-- Darwin Style, consider making sure you truly understand his works. That way when you agree or disagree with him, you'll really know why for yourself.

That goes for me, too.

I plan to do this by reading through Darwin's works for myself throughout this year. If I find that the BBC article was inaccurate in my reading, I'll try to do a post about it.

As a matter of fact, if I feel I need to retract anything I've written about evolution after reading it -- I'll try to do a post about it.

Nothing takes the place of knowing for yourself.

Doing this with the Bible isn't such a bad idea, either.


Happy Darwin Day!

Oh, and I'd also like to give a shout out to ol' Honest Abe. It's his bicentennial birthday, too.