Over the Thanksgiving break, my wife and son took a trip to Washington, DC. Among the many, many places they visited was the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. There they got to see the museum’s new Deep Time fossil hall, and they sent me these photos of the Charles Darwin quote and young Darwin statue that fit so prominently in the exhibit. The quote is the last line of On the Origin of Species – “From so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved” – and the statue depicts Darwin writing in a notebook, showing his “I think” tree of life sketch.
Other views of the statue, and information regarding the time capsule that was placed underneath it, at the following links: Smithsonian, Washington Post, 1a.org, and Washington Post again.
I particularly welcome the fact that this is Darwin as a young man, rather than the bearded icon
So am I! He was 50 by the time he published the Origin.