Darwin's Dangerous Idea

A few years ago PBS produced a movie based on the Darwin's famous trip to the Galapagos Islands during which he observed the finches and their specifically adapted beaks and his subsequent scientific realizations. The movie is interspersed with commentary by the philosopher Daniel Dennet who wrote a book by the same name and who offers us, the viewers, an overview and context of what is going on.

I think the movie does a good job of illustrating not just the religious opposition Darwin faced, but the scientific theories of the time. 'Formalism', explanations largely based on Platonic metaphysics (i.e.: that specieization is derivative from prime 'forms' just like Plato thought our ideas were) dominated the rationalist thinking of the time. It is really incredible to consider the staunch opposition Darwin faced from both sides.

Had Darwin been born a generation earlier he most likely would have been tortured and forced to recant under threat of death, and upon so doing would have been slowly and cruelly murdered, probably by slow burning or quartering. All in the name of Christianity of course.

Descent with modification from a common ancestor... the idea is really so simple, yet so revolutionary, and so obvious when one takes a cursory look at the world. I can't help but wonder how far our species might have advanced by now if we hadn't suffered the oppression of authority, dogmatism, and imaginary fear for so many sad centuries.