Paul Underhill
Evolution in the head
Drinking turtle urine might seem going a bit far, even in the name of science - but that was just the start for
Darwin.
About our expert
Paul Underhill read History and Social and Political sciences at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, followed by a PhD in Social History of Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. He combines work as a reporter for Hansard in Westminster with teaching History of Science and Humanities for the Open University. He lives in Wiltshire with his wife and young child.
Related programme
Charles Darwin (1809-1882) has rightly acquired the reputation of an Olympian among scientists and is widely regarded as the greatest naturalist for his discovery of the holy grail of biology – the modern theory of evolution. Darwin’s life and scientific work grips the popular imagination to a degree reached by few other scientists. Adventure and discovery on a famous voyage on the Beagle; the heart-rending tragedy of losing a most-loved daughter at such a young age; the publication of a blockbuster that fundamentally and irrevocably changed man’s self-image and ideas of his place in nature; burgeoning fame, but recurrent illness; burial in Westminster Abbey: these are just some of the key moments in the Darwin story. The fascination in studying Darwin’s life and scientific work perhaps lies in the paradox that the radically subversive and revolutionary theory of evolution by natural selection was accomplished by such a genteel and eminently respectable Victorian. Charles Darwin was possibly the most mild-mannered revolutionary of all time. The many religious and political controversies that Darwin’s theory of evolution posed will help us to appreciate the revolutionary and iconoclastic nature of his work and to understand the extraordinary personal dilemma of the author.
Before Darwin, the origins of life on earth were understood through a framework of interpretation known as "natural theology". The design of an omniscient and omnipotent God took pride of place in this explanatory scheme. Natural theologians supplied a beautiful evocation of life abounding with goodness and joy. All species of animals were complex mechanisms shaped in the divine workshop. They were exquisitely fitted to their niches in the world and they were so well designed that there had to be a designer, just as every watch presupposes the existence of a watchmaker. This comforting and reassuring “argument from design” was radically undermined and could never recover from Darwin’s painstaking observational research and resultant theory of evolution by natural selection, for it was Darwin’s genius to provide a natural explanation for the organisational and functional design of living beings, thereby bringing the living world fully into the realm of natural science.
