Happy 200th Birthday, Darwin!

Posted in Darwin's Garden, Exhibitions, People, Science on February 12 2009, by Plant Talk

Carol Capobianco is Editorial Content Manager at The New York Botanical Garden.
Charles Darwin (shown in bronze in a sculpture in the Rare Book Room) was born on this day in 1809, sharing the exact same birthday as Abraham Lincoln—though a world away in England.

Last spring the Botanical Garden celebrated his work with plants in the Garden-wide exhibition Darwin’s Garden: An Evolutionary Adventure as a lead-in to this bicentennial year, which also marks the 150th anniversary of his groundbreaking book. (We can’t tell you the name of it here, because it’s one of the questions in the short quiz below).

During the show, some of the world’s leading Darwin experts had gathered to discuss the far-reaching legacy of Charles Darwin and the implications of his thinking for science and society today in a special two-part symposium, Darwin: 21st-Century Perspectives, hosted by the Garden and the American Museum of Natural History, and which you can hear by clicking here.

If you first need a Darwin 101 refresher before listening to these scholars, test yourself with these few questions. The answers are provided after the jump.

Or, if you want to learn about Darwin in song, check out this snippet taped partly in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory recently of live performer and Darwin scholar Richard Milner. Milner performed his Charles Darwin: Live & In Concert at the Botanical Garden during last year’s exhibition and was featured this week in The New York Times.

And now for the quiz…

1. Darwin sailed to the Galápagos on a ship named…

a. Sundew
b. Retriever
c. Beagle
d. Albatross

2. Darwin began his formal studies in botany at…

a. Oxford
b. Cambridge
c. Glasgow
d. Edinburgh

3. How many children did Darwin have?

a. 10
b. 7
c. 3
d. None

4. Darwin is known as the founder of which famous theory?

a. Relativity
b. Big Bang
c. Quantum Mechanics
d. Evolution by Natural Selection

5. What was the title of Darwin’s book that changed the way scientists view all life?

a. Inherit the Wind
b. The World As I See It
c. Origin of Species
d. The Diversity of Life

Answers after the jump!

Answers: 1. c; 2. b; 3. a; 4. d; 5. c