Charles Darwin and the Human Face of Science

Finneran, Kevin, Issues in Science and Technology

The latest success in Charles Darwin's victory lap marking his 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species is a starring role in a major motion picture. Creation, a film by Jon Amiel starring real-life husband and wife Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly as Charles and Emma Darwin will open in the United States in January. In what might be a relief to those who have taken their own voyage of the Beagle through a seemingly nonstop series of Darwin conferences and symposia, the film focuses not on the science itself, though there is a little of that, or the religious opposition to Darwin's ideas, though that theme does appear in the context of Charles's relationship with Emma, but on the personal demons with which Darwin must wrestle before he can write and publish his groundbreaking book.

The movie, which is based in part on the book Annie's Box by Darwin's great great grandson Randall Keynes, is a highly dramatized and somewhat fictionalized treatment of this period of Darwin's life. This is not the elder sage …

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Publication information: Article title: Charles Darwin and the Human Face of Science. Contributors: Finneran, Kevin - Author. Magazine title: Issues in Science and Technology. Volume: 26. Issue: 2 Publication date: Winter 2010. Page number: 25+. © 1999 National Academy of Sciences. COPYRIGHT 2010 Gale Group.

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