Darwin anniversaries come home

It was an event one hundred years ago: the centenary of Charles Darwin's birth was marked widely, no more so than by one of Germany's most famous biologists, Ernst Haeckel. He delivered an address at the University of Jena celebrating Darwin as one of the last events before he retired. Another century on and many institutions worldwide have celebrations under way this year to mark 200 years since Darwin's birth and 150 years since the first publication of his Origin of Species. But, while scientists and science historians are in little doubt about the significance and intellectual stature of Darwin, there is growing concern that his status is much less secure amongst the general public. Creationism, whose followers reject the fundamentals of Darwin's evolutionary theory, has appeared to gain ground, particularly in the US. And a survey at the end of last year in the UK found that almost one third of teachers would be quite happy to teach creationism alongside evolution. Such findings raise increasing alarm bells amongst researchers. " It is my profound hope that teachers and everyone else should learn to stop treating him as a prophet, or a pariah, or a philosopher, or even as a trained ecclesiastic who turned to atheism — and just take him for what he was, the greatest biologist in history. " Richard Dawkins, at Oxford University was equally frustrated by these findings. " If teaching creationism 'alongside' evolution means what it seems to mean, it is no more defensible than teaching the stork theory alongside the sex theory of where babies come from. " So, many people are keen to promote Darwin's work within the wider public News focus and, in his home town of Shrewsbury, they are doing just that. Darwin spent the first 27 years of his life in the town, so it has long and significant links with him, but his fame came later, following his voyage on HMS Beagle and subsequent life in London and finally Down House in Kent, where he raised his family and wrote the Origin of Species. But Shrewsbury is determined to celebrate its famous son and engage the general public with his past and his ideas. Events get under way on February 12, Darwin's birthday, with a reception in the town centre at noon and a toast to Darwin, followed by a walk around the town to visit the newly completed …