My interest in Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882) sparked during my freshman and sophomore years in high school. I was baptized Catholic when I was younger (I was too young too object) and was raised in a more or less Catholic environment (though church was never forced upon my brother and I, we were still taught the Catholic views). However, I have always questioned the existence of "God." In eighth grade, I guess you say that I was Agnostic for awhile. Then I was sort of Pagan. My freshman year, I finally knew what I believed in: nothing. I'm Atheist. I do not believe in God, Satan, angels, Heaven, Hell, spirits, etc. I still respect other people's beliefs though. I have a close friend and close family members that are Christian. You can believe what you believe, and I will believe what I believe. Nothing can be proven either way.
So how does Atheism tie in with Darwin? Evolution. I totally believe in evolution. I think Darwin is a genius for what he proposed [in The Origin of Species (1859) and Descent of Man (1871)]. I believe that what he proposed is completely true.
My sophomore year, I was searching frantically for a science fair project topic. I stumbled across a project on earthworms and humus. Wanting to have a good project, I put a twist on the project. As I began my research, I stumbled across Darwin and his amazing studies with earthworms…
[NOTE: The below information on Darwin and earthworms (all but the last paragraph) was taken from my research paper that I did my sophomore year.]
Darwin got his inspiration to work with earthworms in 1838. He was visiting his uncle (and soon-to-be father-in-law), Josiah Wedgewood, at Maer. This was when his Uncle Jos showed him a place where he suggested that earthworms were bringing dirt from underground to the surface. These ideas made something spark inside Darwin to start experimenting with earthworms.
He stated observations on earthworms when they come out of their burrows:
"Earthworms must be considered as terrestrial animals… During the summer when the ground is dry, they penetrate to a considerable depth and cease to work, as they do during the winter when the ground is frozen.
Worms are nocturnal in their habits, and at night may be crawling about in large numbers, but usually with their tail still inserted in their burrows. By the expansion of this part of their bodies, and with the help of the short…bristles, with which their bodies are armed, they hold so fast that they can seldom be dragged out of the ground without being torn into pieces. During the day, they remain in their burrows, except at the pairing season, when those which inhabit adjoining burrows expose the greater part of their bodies for an hour or two in the early morning."
Darwin was also the first to take any known observation of a worm having no hearing:
"Worms do not posses any sense of hearing. They took not the least notice of the shrill notes from a metal whistle, which was repeatedly sounded near them; nor did they of the deepest and loudest tones of a bassoon.
"They were indifferent to shouts, if care was taken that the breath did not strike them. When placed on a table close to the keys of a piano, which was played as loudly as possible, they remained perfectly quiet."
According to Darwin's wife, Emma, he even tried to train earthworms. This is what she wrote to one of their children one day.
"Father has no proof sheets and has taken to training earthworms, but does not much progress as they can neither see nor hear. They are, however, amusing and spend hours in seizing hold of the edge of a cabbage leaf and trying in vein to pull it into their holes. They give such tugs they shake the whole leaf."
Darwin wrote an entire book on earthworms. It is titled The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worm. In this, he stated, "It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world, as these lowly, organized creatures." Darwin also stated that one acre of land could contain as many as fifty thousand earthworms and in twenty years will add a fresh, new three inches of topsoil to our planet.
The only thing that bothers me about Darwin is that he married and had children with his first cousin, Emma. You would think that a man of his intelligence would know that marrying and procreating with your first cousin is rather weird. Edgar Allan Poe married his cousin too. Maybe I'm the weird one for considering two men who married their cousins as two of the most intelligent men that ever lived.
