I'm sure that this will be all over the news and blog world today, but it is the 200th birthday of one of the most important scientists the world has ever known. His theory of evolution by way of natural selection helped us to define our place in the universe and provided the "missing link" between ourselves and the rest of the living world. After Darwin we know that we are all related - every living thing on earth has a common ancestry. The living world consists not of separate "kinds" that co-exist, but instead a complex web of distant relations. The advances for medicine and the general study of biology that this idea has made possible cannot be exaggerated. So take a moment or two out of your busy day to think about this fellow and the incredible leap he took, to apply his theory to humankind itself - something many still cannot come to terms with. But as he said way back in the 19th century:
“We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities... still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.” - Charles Darwin (1809-1882.)
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