Darwin, the man

Even though I am in a place called Darwin I had not realised I knew so few about the man who gave his name to the city. I was delighted to watch a documentary today that made me feel like learning much more. The doco I watched was interesting but a bit superficial I reckon concentrating on the first quarter of the Beagle voyage only. You almost feel that there should have been 4 additional parts. But it corrected several misconceptions I had about the man. I always heard he joined the Beagle even though he was not particularly brilliant. There I learnt the real story behind his joining and understood how serious and dedicated he was to his job. It also enlightened me a lot on his theory of evolution itself. I was still with the image (often seen on posters) of the man evolving from the ape but his tree of life theory is nothing like that! To make a long story short, there is no doubt that one of my next readings will be his autobiography to try and know more. I also feel his theory should be taught much more thoroughly at school.