I recently learned the following of Darwin (although I mistakenly forget the source).

When Darwin left to head to the Galapagos, he believed in creationism, that is that the world had geographic “centers” of creation where God placed species, which whence spread around the world.

On his way back to England, reviewing his evidence collected, he came up with his theory of evolution, positing the plausibility that all species are interrelated historically (ie one species comes from another).

He then wrote up his “Origin of Species”.

What I find interesting is that in the 2nd edition of this book (his revision), he included the phrase “by the creator” in the last sentence of the book:

“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”

Interesting that a creationist, turned evolutionist, decided to include this phrase after he told the world about his theory and took the heat by the creationist community…

And you gotta love the phrase “endless forms most beautiful.”

Question resolved

2006-08-20 Since I did enjoy the above phrase, I read through Sean B. Carroll’s “Endless Forms Most Beautiful”. Thankfully he addressed Darwin’s revision in the second edition. Apparently Darwin regretted this addition (expressed in a letter to a friend), claiming that he was motivated to appease the popular critics. Perhaps Darwin thought that smoothing over his ideas a bit would help them gain acceptance. Perhaps the critics wanted to confirm Creationism still had a place in the then current reality model. Perhaps Darwin was looking to mesh his personal religious model with his natural one. Either way this is just another example of a brilliant thinker striving to explain reality.