Darwin’s birthday evolves into holiday
By Kathy Matheson
Updated: 4:20 p.m. ET Feb. 9, 2006
PHILADELPHIA - Thanks to the "intelligent design" movement, Charles Darwin's birthday is evolving into everything from a badminton party to church sermons this weekend.
Defenders of Darwin's theory of natural selection are planning hundreds of events around the world Sunday, the 197th anniversary of his birth, saying recent challenges to the teaching of evolution have re-emphasized the need to promote his work...>
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11258227/Charles Robert Darwin (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was a British naturalist who achieved lasting fame by convincing the scientific community of the occurrence of evolution and proposing the theory that this could be explained through natural and sexual selection. This theory is now considered the central explanatory paradigm in biology.
He developed an interest in natural history while studying first medicine, then theology, at university. Darwin's five-year voyage on the Beagle and subsequent writings brought him eminence as a geologist and fame as a popular author. His biological observations led him to study the transmutation of species and, in 1838, develop his theory of natural selection. Fully aware that others had been severely punished for such "heretical" ideas, he only confided in his closest friends and continued his research to meet anticipated objections. However, in 1858 the information that Alfred Russel Wallace had developed a similar theory forced early joint publication of the theory...>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heresy#Contemporary_heresy