Darwin still a force in Britain at 200
Nation lauds him for work that transcends time
DOWNE, England - The house that helped rock the world is spacious but not grand. It is on a country lane in the south of England, at the edge of a tranquil meadow recently whitewashed by an unusual snowfall.
Inside, the great scientist worked with inexhaustible patience in his Victorian study, staring for hours at specimens through a microscope or pondering the riddle of life. In a black armchair specially fitted with wheels, Charles Darwin wrote "On the Origin of Species," the book that changed the way we look at the world around us - and at ourselves.
For 40 years, Down House was the perfect place for Darwin to think, write, and enjoy family life out of the spotlight.
"The country is extraordinarily rural and quiet, with narrow lanes and high hedges and hardly any ruts," Darwin wrote. "It is really surprising to think London is only 16 miles off."
So much for retiring from public view. Today, 200 years after his birth on Feb. 12, 1809, Darwin seems to be everywhere in his native land.
His bushy-bearded face graces numerous television programs exploring the impact of his ideas. Prominent Britons dissect his life and times on the radio. The city of Shrewsbury, Darwin's birthplace, is lighting up buildings at night with huge projected images and films relating to its most famous son.
Libraries, zoos, art galleries, choral groups, universities, museums, and, a little ironically, churches own a piece of the extravaganza celebrating Darwin's bicentennial, a yearlong series of 300 events that make up one of the most extensive national commemorations of a single person ever to be held in this country.
That may only be fitting for someone whose revolutionary theory of how life evolved leaped over the boundaries of pure science and into so many other spheres - politics, religion, economics, the arts.
"It's difficult to overstate how pervasive Darwin's work is," said Robert M. Bloomfield, coordinator of the umbrella organization Darwin200 and head of special projects at London's Natural History Museum. "He undoubtedly produced the biggest idea in science in the 19th century and, some people say, of all time. Because when you question your relationship to nature, you question everything."
A recent editorial by The Times of London went so far as to argue this: "Darwin is not merely a man of his time. The extent of his achievement gives him a plausible claim to be counted the greatest figure in this nation's history."
That a scientist whose ideas still rile conservative religious groups can be so effusively feted is a testament to how secular Britain is, at least in the public square.
There have been few hiccups of protest over the attention being lavished on Darwin or the money spent on ballyhooing his legacy.
"It isn't polarized like it is in the US," Bloomfield said. "There are people who rant on the interplay between science and faith, but it's not the same sort of political debate in the UK."
Still, even the critically acclaimed "Darwin: Big Idea, Big Exhibition" at Bloomfield's museum gives a nod to the controversies spawned by the concept of evolution through natural selection.
Under the heading "Sticker Shock," a biology textbook from Georgia bears a warning label mandated by the local education board: "Evolution is a theory, not a fact." A short video also addresses the friction between Darwinism and religion.
But the thrust of the exhibition is the evolution of Darwin's thinking, how the seed of a blockbuster idea was planted and nourished over a long period.
Crucial to that was his five-year voyage around the world on the Beagle, which launched in 1831 and brought the budding naturalist to exotic destinations full of creatures he had never heard of, whose variety and subtle gradations set his mind racing.
In a display case lies the Holy Grail of Darwiniana: his red notebook that contains his famous drawing of the "Tree of Life," on which he mapped out the development of different forms of life from a common primordial root. Modestly written at the top of the page are the words: "I think." 