October 29, 2007
(cautious obsessive compulsive - careful and conscientious)
Part 1 history of Darwin’s early life
Education – medicine of the age
The imposing Dr Robert Darwin was not pleased when his son chose to abandon medicine at Edinborough
Uncle Josiah and Father arguing his prospects
Charles Darwin raised up from mediocrity
You live to hunt and shoot and collect beetles
(Darwin and Wallace “Look what I have found”)
adolescent joy of collecting
hunting gathering shooting skinning
preserving and stuffing
accumulating over time
the slow growth of an empire of knowledge
(F) And why were you asked ? ‘it was my proffessor Henslow’s doing
(aside if truth be known it was to be a companion to a complex and brittle man – Lord Fitzroy – vignette?)
Show me a reasonable man that can present arguments in favor of this voyage, and I will reconsider
Charles’ Uncle Josiah Wedgwood answers Dr. Robert Darwin point by point
As you can clearly see…
before his journey begins
young Charles Darwin
believes in the faith of our fathers
and with a comfortable future as a minister
a country gentleman with a parish
and a passion for nature,
while tending his flock
he has a vocation for the lord
and all is right on heaven and earth
into these simple beginnings
let us introduce doubt…
without a doubt
beyond a doubt
beyond a shadow of a doubt
what then do we see as the weather changes
we find
that life itself rearranges without design
by rhyme and reasons
to best fit the seasons at hand
if you will from simplicity to full strange jazz
Darwin: Imagine…
A universe intelligent and free
Able to grow, as if from seed
With out the need
Of a captain
To create , assign and rule, only a fool
Would conceive of such a thing
How can I explain
Perhaps it is best to refrain
From saying anything
Until, with much ado, I can accrue
the evidence such a view requires
But if I am condemned to follow this road
Help me to convincingly present the facts
As demonstrated in these artifacts
Profusely provided by nature
countless detail
perfection and polish
is necessary to erect
this edifice of knowledge
this citadel
to science
this cathedral of mind
I shall commit myself
I shall commit my thoughts to paper
I shall commit my thoughts though all hell breaks loose
And I will follow what I’ve come to know is truth
(to Fitzroy) though there are rifts and reefs between us
now there are miles where once were inches
please send me finches
Darwin 1/3
set out with me on a journey of discovery
a quest personal germaine mundane
to the very heart of the universe
stirring souls out of the primordial stew
rising ameboid from the goo
and I see
laid out before me
the wonder of it all
capricious and flawed
if not a stately progression
ordained by God
An eternity of change frozen solid when mankind emerged on the scene
well we will set the stage and rob it if we can
and hope to get away clean... I would be thrilled to death.
where we stand
ready to embark
on the construction of a better man/God
to save us from the dark
arbitrary plans of God/man
obituary
I can understand
a cat from a bat
a coat with a hat
a fly from a gnat
but
a man from a chimp
how impudent
I can’t swallow this simple thought
though I guess they are all relative to me
First Light
Darwin hammer taps
geological drone work - unearthing fossils
accumulation of minutia - painstaking - back breaking
tedious in the extreme
look at it
what does this fossil record tell us
what do these fragments of bone and stone say
then look at us
who do we think we are
time stands still before me
frozen strata - within the land
to be read - like this book in my hand
Something tells me that catastrophe
Didn’t raise these shells
High into the Andes
Why do these living creatures
Resemble fossil remains
On the Patagonian plains - on the plains of Paraguay
Fitzroy reprise
F) Fundamentally, there is only one path...
D) “And what is in that direction?
W) It’s the path not taken
the way through the woods
never known
and over grown
with regrets
and other birds of prey.... (at play)
F) it’s a mystery to me
how these species came to be
but.... let me tell you about the flood....
D and W cast knowing glances at each other as F launches into the
The Mosaic Account
Light was created before the sun and the moon
4th verse God divided the light from the darkness
F) perhaps effected by a rotation of the earth”
“And the evening and the morning were the 1st day”
in the 12th verse “grass, herbs and trees were brought forth…”
in the 14th and 16th - “lights were made to divide the day from the night”
F) “it is known that neither trees, herbs, nor grass
Can exist long without the light and heat of the sun…
Therefore the rotation of the earth between the 3rd day
When vegetation was produced and the 4th, could not have
Been very different in velocity, from the present rotation.”
Thomas Scott Nelson ©
last modified
September 5, 2020