Darwinmania! Quote of the Day
Olivia Judson in the New York Times alerts us to this wonderful quote from the head of the Linnean Society the same year that Darwin first spoke of Natural Selection before the Linnean Society.
“The year which has passed has not, indeed, been marked by any of those striking discoveries which at once revolutionize, so to speak, the department of science on which they bear.”
Such is life. The next year The Origin of Species was published and he must have been slightly embarrassed at his mistake.
On the other hand, that was the same year as the discovery of cactus in the new world, so it was embarrassing all around. (Of course, I may be wrong about the date a little bit, and I may end up being a little embarrassed about that myself. Only time will tell.)
