Happy Birthday Charles Darwin

Today marks the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin, co-discoverer with Alfred Russel Wallace of the theory of evolution by natural selection.

I won't go on too much; Darwin and Wallace where both great men but science is the collective work of many individuals. Some of us just hit the big time. Rather than make you read a load I'd suggest you go and make a donation to the Beagle Project and help fund a rather cool project.

To celebrate the day Google has created a special logo - see above.

Evolution as work in progress

This article by Tim Radford in the Guardian nicely illustrates an important point.

There's more to science than big names and their big ideas. Darwin's discovery is important, but it was co-discovered by Alfred Russel Wallace, and many people have helped to fill in gaps in the theory ever since. Scientific ideas are rarely totally complete.