Survival of the not-so-fittest
We all probably have a fantasy of finding something very valuable and rare in an old attic or barn, neglected by the world till now. And every now and then it actually happens. When it does there’s something very, very satisfying about it.
But I doubt that paleontologist Dr. Harold Falcon-Lang of the University of London thought he’d find anything quite so exciting as this (for paleontologists and science historians, anyway) when he opened a drawer in a wooden cabinet generically marked “unregistered fossil plants” in the British Geological Survey.
But let’s hear him tell it:
What I found inside made my jaw drop! Inside were hundreds of beautiful glass slides. Almost the first I picked up was labelled ‘C. Darwin Esq.’ This is an amazing snapshot into Darwin’s working life. This was one of the most exciting periods in the history of science, forming the mind of the man who would develop the theory of evolution, which would change the world.”
Falcon-Lang, according to AP, said when he found one of the slides labelled “C. Darwin Esq,” It took him a while “just to convince myself that it was Darwin’s signature on the slide…
To find a treasure trove of lost Darwin specimens from the Beagle voyage is just extraordinary…There are a lot of very, very significant fossils in there that we didn’t know existed.
So the find is a double discovery: the light it sheds on Darwin’s life and voyage, and the information the slides contain about the fossil record. Maybe someone should go through the rest of the organization’s old drawers.
Wow! Some of the fossils they mention are really fascinating.
Maybe they can bring them onto “Antiques Roadshow”
The Brits used to do lots of that kind of thing when the empire was flush. Given the recent unrest in the Middle East and Greece, I hope they will hold on to all that “stuff” they appropriated.
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This was one of the most exciting periods in the history of science, forming the mind of the man who would develop the theory of evolution, which would change the world.
Yes, it did change the world. Evolution is a simplistic tautological theory which set back the academy for a hundred years. Its appropriation by eugenicists and social sciences led to horrors justified by science. In fact, science, in the case of evolution, has devolved into a medieval guardianship of power. The real story is much more complex and deserves a true scientific approach.
Oh, love the headline, Neo.
Curtis,
“In fact, science, in the case of evolution, has devolved into a medieval guardianship of power.”
Perhaps. But how would things be any different with another theory? Jealously guarded guilds, cliques, sects, old-boy networks etc. arise because of the basic human truth that people don’t like being proved wrong.
It’s like in the computing world when I read someone’s lament of how Gary Kildall, software pioneer and author of CP/M and later the GEM windowing environment, was thwarted by Bill Gates and his MS-DOS and Windows creations, respectively. “We could be using GEM nowadays instead of that c***py Windows!” they bleat. To which I reply (if only in thought), “Yeah, and you’d be whining about ‘that c***py GEM’ the same as you’re whining about Windows now.”
I’m not entirely comfortable with the Theory of Evolution–no Orthodox Jewish believer can be–but there’s no heroic posture or even much independence of thought involved in disputing it. Like many other bandwagons, the anti-evolution position is largely just another herd people herd themselves into–the non-conformist conformism so aptly satirized by that classic Life of Brian scene (“We’re all different!”). Forgive me for considering other issues to be more worthy of getting worked up about.