Happy Darwin Day.

I'm celebrating, but my brief biography of Darwin will follow later today. "Google" Darwin Day and enjoy. Maybe there are some good events near you. This image of a young Darwin was borrowed from one of my favorite blogs, Pharyngula, by PZ Myers.
Here goes my Darwin pitch: Charles Darwin was born to a wealthy family and there was an expectation that he pursue a profession such as the clergy or medicine. He tried both, but neither fit. From an early age he was quite interested in nature. He taught himself to be a naturalist, and in his early 20s, having quit medical school as well as religious studies, was already known to be a skilled naturalist. An opportunity arose to serve as ship's naturalist and captain's companion on an expedition of HMS Beagle, collecting specimens around the world, and, basically, informing Britain what there was to exploit, not unlike the role Lewis and Clark performed for Thomas Jefferson. He left England as a creationist and returned five years later a doubter. The main reason Darwin is a hero in my book is that he allowed an honest and thorough examination of evidence to persuade him to challenge the dominant beliefs of his day including his own beliefs. Unlike today's creationists [who like to be called Creation Scientists - an oxymoron if there ever was one] he let the mounting evidence lead to his hypothesis and conclusions rather than start with foregone conclusions and tailor the evidence to fit or reject it, whichever is easiest to get away with. Darwin was well aware of the shock value of the conclusion he came to in identifying natural selection as the process by which species change into other species over time. Being very conscientious and sensitive, particularly where his religious wife was concerned, he hesitated to announce his findings for quite a few years. There are many places where you can find more detailed biographies, but I'd like to repeat here the eloquent words found in the closing paragraph of "On the Origin of Species." 'There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved. I've included with this brief story photos of some of my favorite "forms most beautiful" found within minutes of my home in the northern Sierra. Tomorrow, I'll add notes about these photos as well anecdotes about one of my favorite professors of evolutionary biology, Archie Carr.