Darwin’s Backyard: How Small Experiments Led to a Big Theory

Presented by the Humanities Institute of The New York Botanical Garden and the American Museum of Natural History—Darwin Manuscripts Project

James Costa, Ph.D., Director, Highlands Biological Station, Highlands, NC and Professor of Biology at Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, NC.

Charles Darwin is an iconic figure in evolutionary biology, but behind the icon is a naturalist with a twinkle in his eye and a passion for “fool’s experiments.” Sometimes quirky, often amusing, and always illuminating, Darwin’s amazing array of hands-on experiments were an ever-present part of his home life. His inventive experiments yielded universal truths about nature, and evidence for his revolutionary arguments in On the Origin of Species and other watershed works. After the lecture, James Costa will sign books in the Mertz Library.

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