Both men had fairly interesting lives but I think the overall achievement award has to go to Darwin. Arguably the single most important scientific contribution in the history of the planet: “The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection”.

To truly appreciate this man’s work you have to imagine what things were like back in 1859. Back then the Catholic and Protestant church had pretty much killed the idea of evolution. Folks believed in Genesis, that God was micro managing things and carefully designing each and every living thing. Darwin’s wife was very religious and out of concern for her he held off for about 20 years on publishing this work.

Note: Darwin was not the first to have the idea that species evolved over time, rather he was the first to publicize it and document it in a scientific manner.

Many of the ideas put forth in “Origin” came from Darwin’s observations whilst a passenger on the Beagle”. How cool is it that 200 years ago folks were sailing around to places like the Galapagos islands, discovering animals and plants that had evolved in complete isolation. Amazing stuff.

It’s incredible to me in the 21st century that we still have folks walking around who think Evolution is a Theory. Yes it’s a theory, but so is everything in science. That’s how science works. There are no absolutes, only theories and evidence. When new evidence is discovered or observed, the theory is either validated or invalidated. We have the theory of Gravity, the theory of thermodynamics, the theory of Relativity and the theory of Evolution and on and on.

A couple of common misconceptions:

- Evolution does not maintain that we are descended from apes. Rather that apes and humans share a common ancestor.

- Evolution is not random. There is a random element to it but the driving force is Natural Selection.

- Evolution is sometimes elegant and efficient (e.g. great white shark) and sometime not (moray eel evolved a 2nd set of jaws as the first didn’t give enough suction due to how the body type evolved).

In 150 years of scrutiny the “theory” of evolution has held up. In many cases evolution has predicted the existence of species EVEN BEFORE THEY WERE DISCOVERED! Scientists have dug up fossils and found that “yeah, this fits as a transitional species between X and Y”.

Funnily enough I often hear folks refer to it as “The Origin of The Species”. As if there were only one.

So spare a thought for a brave genius; Darwin.

He’s absolutely correct and what a great quote. This really puts things in perspective and perhaps is not a typical thought that’d occur to you when gazing out on the world.

An animals’ entire life is devoted to surviving (yet life is a terminal disease). Little wonder then that they evolve. What choice do they have?

As of 2006 only 40% of the US population actually believe the theory of Evolution is true [LINK].

40% believe it’s "absolutely false" and the rest aren’t sure. The US trails the rest of the world in this regard with the exception of Turkey (where they also believe red-heads are imaginary, like unicorns).

I think this is mostly a failing in the school system. Most folks I talk to have a piss-poor understanding of what evolution even is. The common mis-conception is that we descended from monkeys. And yet the evidence is there if you look.

For example, Richard Lenski recently published his findings from a 20 year experiment involving e.coli whereby over 44,000 generations they evolved the ability to metabolize citrate [LINK]. Another example is the ever expanding fossil record, including countless transitional fossils (fossils of animals changing from one state to another) [LINK]. Many of these fossils were actually predicted through a scientific understanding of the species’ lineage.

You can take the evolution survey yourself here [http://www.evolutionsurvey.com]

The book is an interesting discussion on various aspects of evolution and why they make sense. It does a great job of conveying just how incredibly complicated the world really is. It’s really amazing the amount of variety and complexity that exists in the known world.

"Just as finding a watch would lead you to conclude that a watchmaker must exist, the complexity of living organisms proves that a Creator exists. Not so, says Dawkins: "All appearances to the contrary, the only watchmaker in nature is the blind forces of physics, albeit deployed in a very special way… it is the blind watchmaker."

Each chapter has a central argument (all against creationism) around some aspect of evolutionary theory.  Some examples might be "why polar bear fur is transparent" or "how bats navigate with echo-location".

This is a big book, with lots of pages and fine type. There’s a lot of information and if you take it slow the book is not a tough read. However, I really I think the author does a poor job of being concise and getting to the point.  There’s a lot of stuff discussed that’s really tangential to the chapter’s argument. In many cases the points are made and then re-made. Beating the dead horse so to speak.

I’ll likely revisit this book as I get further in, (as I said, I’m "currently reading"). So far it’s proving interesting and I’ll definitely finish but it might take a while.