International Darwin Day is annually observed across the globe on February 12 to commemorate the birth anniversary of the 19th-century British naturalist, Charles Robert Darwin, who is well known for his work “The Theory of Natural Selection”.
- The day is observed to reflect and act on the principles of intellectual bravery, perpetual curiosity, scientific thinking, and hunger for truth as embodied in Charles Darwin.
International Darwin Day is the celebration, activism, and international cooperation for the development of science, education, and human well-being.
Background:
International Darwin Day was initiated by three Darwin enthusiasts: Dr Robert Stephens, Prof. Massimo Pigliucci, and Amanda Chesworth.
i. In 1995, Dr Robert Stephens motivated the Silicon Valley Humanist Community to start an annual Darwin Day Celebration.
ii. In 1997, Prof. Massimo Pigliucci initiated annual Darwin Day celebrations at the University of Tennessee, United States of America (USA).
iii. In 2000, Amanda Chesworth joined Stephens to officially incorporate the Darwin Day Program in New Mexico, USA.
About Charles Robert Darwin:
i. Charles Darwin was born on 12th February 1809 in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England.
ii. He was an English naturalist whose scientific theory of evolution by natural selection became the foundation of modern evolutionary studies.
iii. As a naturalist, Charles Darwin joined the British Royal Navy, the HMS Beagle, in 1831 to survey the coastline of South America and chart its harbours to make better maps of the region.
- He spent much of the trip on land collecting samples of plants, animals, rocks, and fossils.
iv. He overcame the scientific rejection of earlier concepts of the transmutation of species by publishing his theory of evolution with convincing evidence in his 1859 book “On the Origin of Species”.
v. He passed away in 1882 in Down, Kent, England, and was buried in Westminster Abbey in London.
Some of the famous works of Charles Darwin:
The Voyage of the Beagle (1839), The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871), The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872), and The Origin of Species : (Abridged Edition) (1956) are the some of the prominent works of Charles Darwin.
