The Origin of Darwin
By OLIVIA JUDSON
Published in the New York Times: February 12, 2009
A look back at the life of Charles Darwin, who was born 200 years ago today. His work transformed our understanding of the planet and of ourselves.
(Olivia Judson, an evolutionary biologist, is the author of “Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation: The Definitive Guide to the Evolutionary Biology of Sex,” which was made into a three-part television program. Ms. Judson has been a reporter for The Economist and has written for a number of other publications, including Nature, The Financial Times, The Atlantic and Natural History. She writes the weekly The Wild Side column for the New York Times and is a research fellow in biology at Imperial College London.)