New Autobiography of Darwin Published
“The Darwin industry as busy as ever with the recent completion of a major biography and renewed scrutiny of his substantial correspondence,” writes Nigel Williams in the Jan. 6 issue of Current Biology. “But a new edition of his autobiography compiled by his son is a welcome addition.” The work seems to talk about his childhood influences, how he got aboard the Beagle against his father’s wishes, and how he thought his greatest contribution in life was “adding a little bit to Natural Science.” His father was apparently exasperated in the youthful Charles’s shiftlessness. He told him once, “You care nothing but for shooting, dogs and rat catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family.” As a last resort he steered him toward theology, which Charles halfway liked: “I had scruples about declaring my belief in all the dogmas of the Church of England; though otherwise I liked the thought of being a country clergyman,” he admitted. Darwin’s only college degree was in theology (10/14/2002).
1Nigel Williams, “Remembrance of things past,” Current Biology, Vol 14, R4-R5, 6 January 2004.
Charlie is the evolutionists’ little idol, and it’s surprising why this should be so, considering he had no science degrees and was not that admirable a person. The biography Nigel Williams refers to must be the highly-acclaimed work by Janet Browne, Charles Darwin: The Power of Place (Princeton, 2002; see quote at top right of this page). The Charlie Browne describes is a bit of a wishy-washy blockhead. He seems to be standing cross-eyed with his hands over his stomach most of the time, ailed by gastric pains caused by worry over what people would think of his book. Considering the strident opposition of leading scientists of the day, (Agassiz, Owen, Sedgwick, John Herschel and many others), his ideas wouldn’t have gotten anywhere if it weren’t for the political savvy of his “Four Musketeers,” as Browne calls them (Huxley, Lyell, Hooker and Asa Gray), who took his ball and ran with it (see 10/24/2002).
In fact, Darwin was often startled and anguished about how everyone did take his ball and run with it. He was trying hard to avoid talk about apes as human ancestors, to avoid the subject of the origin of the first life, and to avoid offending theologians directly. But all his politically-leftist, antireligious, radical disciples understood exactly what his theory meant, and declared war on religion, with The Origin of Species, to Charlie’s horror, as their banner.
Creationists can look to founding fathers much more accomplished, who did far more to advance science than weave just-so stories: men like Kepler, Newton, Boyle, Faraday, Maxwell and many others (see our online book in progress) Read also Browne’s account of Charlie; it’s an eye-opening look into the life and times of the gray-bearded idol who made it possible for a modern scientist to be an intellectually-foolfilled atheist.