Still a Reason to Party

At the New York Times, Olivia Judson pauses before even beginning the soon-to-come celebrations for 150th anniversary of the theory of natural selection and the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin to discuss if Darwin merits such revelry. Darwin was neither the first to posit that evolution occurs, nor was he the first to discuss natural selection, nor was he always right — he did a fair bit of editing in his time. He was, though, the one to support these ideas with vast amounts of evidence, and communicate them well. "His knowledge of the natural world is so immense, and the scrutiny to which he subjects his ideas is so thorough and scrupulous, that the 'Origin' presents a grand new vision of the world," blogs Judson.