Birthday greetings

Today marks the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin, "evolution by natural selection" theoriser, as published in 1859 in On The Origin of Species. But what gave him the idea? In a new book, Darwin's Sacred Cause, co-authors Adrian Desmond and James Moore argue that Charles Darwin was motivated by a loathing of slavery, and the desire to see its abolition , perhaps fueled by the cruelties he witnessed on his travels. A BBC article on the book can be found here and it also includes a link to an interview with the authors.