Darwin: The Secret Life of a Reluctant Revolutionist By: Dr. David Quamer

Dr. Quamer's presentation about Darwin and his theories was awesome to say the least. In this lecture at Blackburn he addressed many questions but the focal question of this lecture was, Was Darwin Wrong? He started by saying that it has been 200 years since his birth and 150 years since his mose popular work, "The Origin of Species". He then stated that our of all the theories out there about how we as humans came to be, the only one that made the most sense was the theory of evolution, which Darwin with the help of Alfred Russell Wallace came up with. From there, he expained that the theory's purpose was not to attempt to expain life on Earth but the theory was supposed to explain life after the beginning of human existence. There were three main points that he had pointed out about Darwin's theory. The points were inheritance, variation, and reproduction. Inheritance suggests that offspring look like their parents. Variation suggests that offspring varies from their parents. Finally reproduction, where this lead to the idea of natural selection. He then expained that life on Earth is crowded and there are too many individuals for mates, food, etc. Because of this it leads to natural selection of the best offspring while the others die off.
Due to two of Darwin's characteristic traits that he had, he delayed the release of his theory. These two traits were caution and honesty. Caution because he waited 21 years before releasing the "Origin of Species". Honesty because he was devoted to science and rationality rather than other views such as religion. Alfred Russell Wallace co-discovered the theory because Darwin waited so long to release his idea. On July 1, 1858, Darwin and his colleague read the idea outloud in a Society meeting that they belonged to. People didn't think much of it and disregarded the idea as a big idea. Then Darwin began to write notes in his little book where he talked about a cat on an island and a cat in the city. Here he was getting to the point that if a cat breeded on an island secluded from mainland cats, it would eventually adapt and have distinct differences from mainland cats once brought back to the mainland.
Dr. Quamaer also talked about many other things about Darwin. Including his personal life with his wife and arguments against himself on his own theory. He also weighed out religious belief and decided that he didn't beleive it. Darwin ended up dying at age 73 of heart disease where his death was one where he suffered pain and nausea. People wanted to know if Darwin was afraid of death and his answer would be that he wasn't.
This lecture was very good and it about convinced me to buy the book, "Origin of Species" just to read more about the subject. And I probably would have bought it if I had an extra couple bucks in my pocket at the time. FYI, the sugar cookies and punch that they served after the lecture were REALLY good!