Complete Darwin Papers Debut on Internet

By John Abell

The complete works of Charles Darwin -- a god among scientists and the bane of every creationist’s existence – are finally available for anyone, anywhere to read. And it only took 126 years and another scientific revolution to make it happen.

Cambridge University, where Darwin studied theology, has digitized and published on the internet its collection of some 30,000 items and 90,000 images by the man who changed the course of science by writing the evolutionary primer, The Origin of Species, in 1859.

The original draft of that seminal work, until now available only to scholars at the Cambridge University Library, is among those now online. There are even some audio samples, like the spoken-word version of the last sentence of Origin of the Species -- alas not in the voice of Darwin himself, who died in 1882.

"This release makes his private papers, mountains of notes, experiments, and research behind his world-changing publications available to the world for free," John van Wyhe, director of the project, told Reuters. "His publications have always been available in the public sphere -- but these papers have until now only been accessible to scholars."

For some, the debate about the theory of evolution has never been settled. From the Scopes trial of 1925, to the 1987 Supreme Court ruling in
Edwards v. Aguillard against teaching creationism in public schools, to the 2005 ouster of the
Dover, Pennsylvania, school board which had sanctioned the teaching of
“intelligent design,” to the “Teach the Controversy” mantra of creationists in intelligent-design clothing to the embrace by President
Bush of i.d. education -- the conversation started by Darwin has shown no real sign of abating.

It’s too early to tell whether this new treasure trove will provide new ammunition, or a slam-dunk silencer, for either side.

But, there is plenty now to easily explore in a friendly format. The online images were made from scans of black-and-white microfilms made mostly in the 1990s, the University says. “For online publication now a slight colour tint has been added to many, and the brightness and contrast have been digitally enhanced,” it says in the official announcement.

Cambridge was given the collection by the Darwin family and Pilgrim Trust after World War II. As described in 1960:

They were in parcels each containing small packets of manuscript wrapped in tissue paper on which the subjects had been noted in
Darwin's hand. They were presumably just as Darwin left them, and accordingly this arrangement was preserved when they were bound, the volumes now representing as closely as possible Charles Darwin's papers in the order in which he left them. Beside the original papers there were copies of a large number of letters to Darwin, collections of press-cuttings, etc.

While free for the looking, there are no reprint rights to any of the material. Inquires must be made to Adam Perkins, Curator of Scientific
Manuscripts in the Cambridge University Library (ajp21@cam.ac.uk or mss@lib.cam.ac.uk).