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The Humanist Fellowship of San Diego
joins annually with Humanists worldwide to celebrate
International Darwin Day, February 12th
Charles Darwin
Born February 12, 1809 at Shrewsbury, on the Severn River, Shropshire, England, near Wales, where visitors today can see many sites associated with his life. Died April 19, 1882; buried in Westminster Abbey the following week. The pall-bearers included Sir Joseph Hooker (botanist), Alfred Russel Wallace (explorer), James Russell Lowell (the U.S. Ambassador), and William Spottiswoode (the president of the Royal Society).
Darwin was buried next to the eminent astronomer Sir John Herschel, and a few feet away from Sir Isaac Newton. Although an agnostic, Darwin was greatly respected by the people of his time.
The Bishop of Carlisle, Harvey Goodwin, in a memorial sermon preached in the Abbey on the Sunday following the funeral, somewhat defensively said I think that the interment of the remains of Mr Darwin in Westminster Abbey is in accordance with the judgment of the wisest of his countrymen
It would have been unfortunate if anything had occurred to give weight and currency to the foolish notion which some have diligently propagated, but for which Mr Darwin was not responsible, that there is a necessary conflict between a knowledge of Nature and a belief in God
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A later rumor of a deathbed conversion to Christianity was denied by his daughter, who was actually present at his death.
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Although much remains obscure, and will long remain obscure, I can entertain no doubt, after the most deliberate study and dispassionate judgment of which I am capable, that the view which most naturalists entertain, and which I formerly entertained -- namely, that each species has been independently created -- is erroneous. I am fully convinced that species are not immutable; but that those belonging to what are called the same genera are lineal descendants of some other and generally extinct species, in the same manner as the acknowledged varieties of any one species are the descendants of that species. Furthermore, I am convinced that Natural Selection has been the main but not exclusive means of modification.
-- Origin of Species, Introduction
The homological construction of the whole frame in the members of the same class is intelligible, if we admit their descent from a common progenitor, together with their subsequent adaptation to diversified conditions. On any other view, the similarity of pattern between the hand of a man or monkey, the foot of a horse, the flipper of a seal, the wing of a bat, &c., is utterly inexplicable. It is no scientific explanation to assert that they have all been formed on the same ideal plan. With respect to development, we can clearly understand, on the principle of variation supervening at a rather late embryonic period, and being inherited at a corresponding period, how it is that the embryos of wonderfully different forms should still retain, more or less perfectly, the structure of their common progenitor. No other explanation has ever been given of the marvelous fact that the embryos of a man, dog, seal, bat, reptile, &c., can at first hardly be distinguished from each other. In order to understand the existence of rudimentary organs, we have only to suppose that a former progenitor possessed the parts in question in a perfect state, and that under changed habits of life they became greatly reduced, either from simple disuse, or through the natural selection of those individuals which were least encumbered with a superfluous part, aided by the other means previously indicated. -- Descent of Man, Chapter 1
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