Charles Darwin exhibition celebrates 200 years since the evolutionist’s birth
Nearly two hundred years after his birth, London’s Natural History Museum presents a unique insight into Charles Darwin as a scientist and family man. The special exhibition will run from mid-November 2008 to the end of April 2009 and also features some unusual exhibits, such as locks of the great man’s beard.
Darwin is the father of the ‘theory of evolution through natural selection’ and this exhibition covers the impact his controversial ideas had on a deeply religious and serious Victorian society. His extensive five-year world voyage aboard HMS Beagle is covered in great detail; Also included is a selection of other exhibits accumulated and used during his extensive voyage, which included a long stopover in the Galapagos Islands. That fate provided much of the evidence and inspiration for his highly contested evolutionary theory. Materials used on his travels, such as well-preserved notebooks and many of the specimens he collected, are also part of this wonderful educational exhibit.
A graduate of Cambridge University in Divinity, Darwin undertook in 1831 the journeys that ultimately caused so much controversy and anger in the Anglican Church. However, it was not until much later, after careful examination of thousands of specimens and postulation of his theories, that Darwin published his best-seller The Origin of Species in 1859. Contradicting belief in divine creation, Darwin may have incurred the wrath of the Church, but the book he co-authored with naturalist Alfred Russell Wallace was incredibly popular with the masses.
Darwin continued that success with The Descent of Man, published in 1871, which once again caused trouble with the church. But, this exhibition focuses more on the positive impact that Darwin had on the intellectual world of natural history. That lasting impact is illustrated by the fact that museums in the UK and North America enthusiastically collaborated with the Natural History Museum to organize the exhibition, including the American Museum of Natural History; the Boston Museum of Science; the Field Museum in Chicago and the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada.
Anyone who visits the Darwin exhibition and wishes to combine it with a stay in the capital will find plenty of hotels in London special offers for museums and exhibitions during the winter. Those interested in the natural world should head across London to the O2 in Greenwich, where the impressive Body Worlds 3 exhibition is in full swing. Featuring Dr. von Hagen’s plastinated human and animal bodies, it offers a unique insight into the construction of the human body and is the perfect complement to the Darwin exhibit.