Darwin Day 2012

Today is Darwin Day, or to put it another way, the 203rd anniversary of Darwin’s birth. You can find various posts around the web, as well as various activities to participate in, by searching on “Darwin Day.” My own contribution is below.

Lost Microscope Slides Of Hooker and Darwin Rediscovered

This is cool. Falcon-Lang’s find was a collection of 314 slides of specimens collected by Darwin and other members of his inner circle, including John Hooker — a botanist and dear friend of Darwin — and the Rev. John Henslow, Darwin’s mentor at Cambridge, whose daughter later married Hooker. The first slide pulled out of [...]

The Experimental Darwin: More on Microscopes and Plants

Darwin was quite experienced with the microscope. In this experiment we see another aspect of the “experimental Darwin”. Here Darwin is examining the effect of ammonia on plants (this is part of his research in insectivorous plants)

How Much Earth Could an Earthworm Move, If an Earthworm Could Move Earth?

It’s a profoundly interesting question and Charles Darwin experimented to find the answer. I bet you all thought I had forgotten about my series on Darwin’s experiments! Darwin came up with a couple of different methods for answering the question. This is one (In this one Darwin also notices a phenomena familiar to archaeologists – [...]

Darwin Experiments With Site Formation Processes

Okay, it was really about mold formation, but the experiment itself sounds like something that would make Michael Schiffer (for those of you unfamiliar with him, Schiffer’s work primarily centers around the processes – natural or manmade – that go into the creation of an archaeological site.) proud. In this experiment Darwin takes advantage of [...]

Darwin and the Cell: Not Just Protoplasm

Intelligent Design proponents are fond of saying that Darwin considered the cell to be just a formless blob of protoplasm. Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box is a good example of this kind of silliness. Few IDiots realize that Darwin was, in fact, a first rate microscopist. In this experiment we see Darwin at the microscope. We [...]

The Experimental Darwin, Tuesday Edition: Darwin and His Seeds

I was researching something different when I encountered some, previously unknown to me, experiments Darwin did with seeds.

Darwin and the Give and Take of Science

One of the key aspects of science controversy – that is people disagree with you and say so. Liu-Ochman flagellum evolution paper paper is a good example. Disagreements are a crucial aspect of how science progresses. In this example Darwin is defending one of his statements about barnacles (the discussion is taking place in the [...]

Darwin on Self and Cross Fertilization

It is a truism in science that experiments raise more questions than they answer. Darwin encountered this phenomena during his experimental career as well. Case in point, in The effects of cross and self fertilisation in the vegetable kingdom Darwin relates how he started the experiments for the book: I was at last led to [...]

Darwin Admits a Mistake

In addition to being a great example of Darwin exploring a problem and performing experiments based on those explorations, this next example has one added point of interest. Darwin admits to making an error in a previous work. The admission is based on the collection of further data – a hallmark of good science! This [...]

Because One Can Never Say Enough About Carnivorous Plants

Darwin, as you may know, wrote a book devoted to carnivorous plants called, appropriately enough, Insectivorous Plants. In this experiment Darwin is using the Venus Flytrap. To set the stage: The sensitive filaments are formed of several rows of elongated cells, filled with purplish fluid. They are a little above the 1/20 of an inch [...]

Darwin Grows Some Plants

This experiment comes from The effects of cross and self fertilisation in the vegetable kingdom. Darwin describes the book thusly: This book will form a complement to that on the Fertilisation of Orchids, in which I showed how perfect were the means for cross-fertilisation, and here I shall show how important are the results. I [...]

Darwin and His Worms

I had thought about not doing a post on Darwin’s experiments today – since it is a holiday and all- but didn’t want to disappoint my readers. So here I be, chained to the computer for you noble readers. Today’s experiment is more along the lines of a dissection and comes from The formation of [...]

Darwin and Insectivorous Plants

In this experiment Darwin is trying to demonstrate that the papillae of Drosera rotundifolia (the common sun-dew) function to absorb nutrients and such. From Insectivorous Plants:

Darwin Goes to Seed

Darwin, as mentioned in a previous post, was concerned with how islands could be populated. To that end he looked at a number of different ways seeds could be transported. Demonstrating that islands could be populated from organisms on continents was an important challenge for his theory. Here is another experiment with seed transport:(From the [...]