Beagle! The very word brings to one's mind that lovely combination of chocolate brown, white and black bundled up in a small body bursting with energy and immense love, right? Yes, my brother, Sanju, has this pedigree breed, and Tashu is one of the loveliest gifts life has to offer.
However much I may love this cute doggie, today, I am not talking of this best buddy of mine. Rather the reference today is to this famous ship Charles Darwin travelled in during his famous voyage to South America which fed in to his re-search of the idea of natural selection.
It was an idea that was as radical as the voyage aboard the ships Pinta, Santa Maria and Niña by Columbus who, too, discovered the South Americas, though, by accident, as actually he was looking for that "el dorado", the golden land, yes, our very own India.
Darwin's diaries of his voyage aboard HMS Beagle made him popular as a (travel) writer. These, moreover, fed in to his radical ideas popularly known as the 'survival of the fittest'. As is always the case with monumental concepts that bring in paradigm shifts, Darwin's notion, too, was over simplified to the level of being dumbed down. Yet another example of this notorious process is Einstein's idea of relativity, right?
Darwin's notion was revolutionary not only for the scientific world, but also for the societal set-up. The Victorian era, volatile as it was with very many radical changes, was shaken at its base, at its very core by the Darwinian concepts, however simplistically understood.
Such a sea-change was brought about because Darwin's ideas questioned the religious base. Mankind no longer was made by Lord, the God, as His own miniature version. Rather, he was a descendant of the ape, as were widely and popularly understood Darwin's ideas which brought a paradigm shift in many branches of science! Hence this small little memoir on the occasion of Darwin's birth anniversary on February 12!
Pratima@ As my shippie brother, Raju, would accept, ships as modes of trade, whether ideational or actual, have changed destinies, Odysseys' mythical travel being yet another literary example.
Quote of the day: "None can stop an idea whose time has come," asserted Victor Hugo.
Word of the day: anthropology Anthropology refers to the study of human societies and cultures, and their development.
Let us learn grammar: A subject complement can be a noun or an adjective. Let us look at examples. Darwin was a scientist (a noun). Darwin's ideas were great (an adjective). This sentence construction s+v+ subject complement is often used
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