FROM THE EDITORS December 21, 2009 Issue

ON THE SEASON OF ORIGINS

BEFORE 2009 FLIES AWAY, let's give a nod to Charles Darwin. His landmark book, On the Origin of Species, recorded its 150th anniversary this year. The famous (infamous, depending on your point of view) naturalist and father of modern biology called this book "my abominable volume." Not because he thought so, but because he figured his detractors would think so. And they did.

Darwin's theory of how life began on Planet Earth riled people up. Nearly everyone in Britain in 1859 held a creationist view of life. And Darwin's theory of evolution took God out of the mix. His new worldview defied the second chapter of Genesis, which says that God created man from dust.

Imagine the shock—and not just to the Church but to educated British society. And Darwin foresaw the flack. In fact, some historians speculate that he sat on his research for years. If he did, waiting didn't help. Darwin lit a match to a powder keg of cherished beliefs, and the fire of controversy still rages (for example, in some of today's US public school systems).

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