Darwin celebrations begin

A meeting in London at the beginning of the month kicked off the double celebration next year of Darwin's birth 200 hundred years ago and the first publication of the Origin of Species 50 years later. A number of events are planned which include a major television series and exhibitions in London, Cambridge and Washington. The celebration at the Linnean Society marked the original low-key start to the events: Wallace at the society on July 1 1858. " On the tendency of species to form varieties; and on the perpetuation of varieties and species by natural means of selection " were read to the Linnean Society of London on behalf of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace 150 years ago. But neither author was present and the demure presentation belied an intellectual storm. Darwin had been working on his theory of natural selection for years: data from his long travels on HMS Beagle and subsequent local studies in Kent, alongside requests for information from a vast array of people around the world, were helping to build the evidence that he felt necessary to present his new theory. So it was a bolt from the blue when a young English naturalist, Alfred Wallace, in east Asia sent him a manuscript outlining a theory of natural selection that he hoped the famous Darwin would help get an airing. Darwin was dumbstruck, but his network of highly influential friends, hatched a plan to ensure Darwin's work would not be eclipsed by Wallace. Darwin was highly distracted: a local outbreak of scarlet fever threatened his children and had already killed three children in his village of Downe in Kent. He thought it unethical to put out a pre-emptive paper, given his insider knowledge. As his son, Charles, was dying from the fever, Darwin put the whole matter into the hands of his influential scientific friends, Joseph Hooker and Charles Lyell. Wallace's paper would be read alongside one by Darwin at the Linnean Society, to ensure that he would not lose priority for all his work. " He had finally gone public. After 20 years of fret and frustration he had exposed himself, " wrote Darwin biographers Adrian Desmond and James Moore. To make up for a meeting postponed when Darwin's friend Robert Brown died, the Linnean Society council decided to fit in an extra one before the summer recess on Thursday July 1. Only …