Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Happy Darwin Day!

DarwinToday marks the 199th birthday of Charles Darwin (February 12, 1809 - April 19, 1882), perhaps the ultimate FreeThoughtAction hero.

According to Wikipedia, Darwin "was an eminent English naturalist who achieved lasting fame by convincing the scientific community that species develop over time from a common origin. His theories explaining this phenomenon through natural and sexual selection are central to the modern understanding of evolution as the unifying theory of the life sciences, essential in biology and important in other disciplines such as anthropology, psychology and philosophy."

Darwin's 1859 publication of On the Origin of Species and his 1871 The Descent of Man not only unified the life sciences, it revolutionized human thought, overturning the argument from design (or teleological argument), that had prevailed for thousands of years.