69 DARWIN’S GHOST
 
DARWIN’S GHOST: THE DARWIN EXHIBIT AT THE
AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY


Jonathan Zilberg

jonathanzilberg@gmail.com


Currently, in the Museum of Natural History in New York, there is the show
- not merely of the century, but of two.1 In a sophisticated and accessible,
even moving manner, the exhibition “Darwin” walks one through the story of
the discovery of evolution and how it has become the guiding principle of
modern biology. Not surprisingly, it is packed from dawn to dusk. And by the
time all this Darwinia returns to England for the bi-centennial celebration of
Darwin’s birth to be held at The British Museum in 2009, it will have
enlarged many an enquiring mind. (Brent 1981) And more than that perhaps,
the experience above all will have allowed the sensitive viewer to better

1 For the Centennial celebration in 1909, see American Museum Journal (1909) and
“1909: The First Darwin Centenary” at http://darwin-online.org.uk/2009.html. On the
Bicentennial, see Ridley (2009) and Quammen (2009). For a record of continuing
events in Britain, see the BBC web site page “Darwin: The Genius of Evolution” at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/darwin/. For the audio and video downloads from the 2009
Darwin Festival at Cambridge University http://www.darwin2009.cam.ac.uk. For the
Darwin 150 lectures in the US in 2009, see http://www.darwin150.com including
Sean Carroll’s lecture “Making the Fittest” at
http://www.molbio.wisc.edu/carroll/Fittest.html. Two of the penultimate events of the
Darwin Bicentenary will be the British Council’s Darwin Now: Darwin’s Living
Legacy: Evolution and Society to be held at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt
(November 14-16, 2009) and at the Israel Institute of Technology From Darwin to
Evo-Devo (November 23-24, 2009). At the Smithsonian, Since Darwin: The Evolution
of Evolution (September 12, 2009 through July 18, 2010) and Cases: Darwin’s
Legacy (September 10, 2009 through Sept 12, 2010) will follow upon Orchids
through Darwin’s Eyes (January 24 – April 26, 2009). The Darwin exhibition re-
opens at the San Diego Natural History Museum as Darwin: Evolution/Revolution
from November 7, 2009 through February 28, 2010. For a full record of all such
events including the memorial dinner in Darwin’s honor to be held at Cambridge, see
again http://darwin-on-line.org.uk/. Also see www.about.Darwin.com and the PBS
series on evolution at www.pbs.org/wqbh/evolution. Finally, see the Natural History
Museum’s The Great Debate Schools Program at http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-
online/evolution/index.html.

ZILBERG      70 
 
appreciate Darwin’s transcendental awe, a spiritual dimension in his life and
work somewhat diminished in current reception of Darwin’s legacy.2

The exhibition is a temple of information and history which fills one with
wonder and respect for Darwin, for our collective powers of observation and
reasoning - and especially for Alfred Russel Wallace’s thunderclap for it was
Wallace’s 1858 manuscript On the Tendencies of Variation to Depart
Independently From the Original Type which impelled Darwin to publish On
the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of
Favored Races within a year.3 Today one hundred and fifty years later,
Darwinism has not only survived but thrived.4 It has evolved from a theory
based on meticulous science and an enormous body of evidence and

2 On the tension between materialism and the spiritual or transcendental in the
evolution debate in the public arena, see the closing discussion with Karen Armstrong
on National Public Radio at KERA, December 29, 2009 at
http://podcastdownload.npr.org/anon.npr-podcasts/podcast/77/510036/1. Also see
“Where does Evolution leave God?” in The Wall Street Journal, September 12, 2009
at
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203440104574405030643556324.ht
m. Armstrong takes the same position as Gould in his elucidation of the principle of
NOMA and the differences between science and religion as meeting different needs,
see Gould (1999) and Zilberg (2005/2009) at
http://tikarpandan.org/index.php?option=comcontent&view=article&id=119:on-
islam-and-intelligent-design-fusion&catid=54:artikel&Itemid=69).
3 See David Quammen’s “The Man Who Wasn’t Darwin,” National Geographic,
December 2008, vol. 214, no. 6, pp. 106-133 and Michael Casey’s “Forgotten
evolutionist lives in Darwin’s shadow” The Jakarta Post, Tuesday July 7, 2009,
pp.22. Also see The Alfred Russel Wallace Page at
http://D:/Biology/The%20Alfred%20Russel%20Wallace%20Page.htm and naturally,
The Malay Archipelago (2000). Also see Brackman (1980), Francs Darwin
(1887/1969), Eldredge (2005), Marchant (1916), Wallace (1889/1975) and Williams-
Ellis (1966). This is particularly significant in light of the debate concerning Alfred J.
Wallace both in terms of being the co-founder of the modern concept of evolution and
for his pronounced spiritualist tendencies. In my view, and many others including
Wallace himself, Charles Darwin was not only a consummate gentleman in the due
credit he secured for Wallace but even more significantly for his scientific modesty
considering the comparative weight of his voluminous and sustained scientific work
underpinning his elucidation of the theory.
4 For a few examples, see Appleman (1970), Barnett (1962), Bowler (1983), Cherfas
(1982), De Beer (1963), Dawkins (2009), Eldredge (1995, 1989, 2005a), Huxely
(1887, 1893/1970) Gould (1977a), Greene (1975, 1981), Greene (1983), Keith (1955),
Kellog (1907), Lack (1983), Larson (2006), Loewenberg (196, 1969), Passmore
(1959), Ruse (2009), Smith (1975), Stereing (2007), Wiener (1994) and Young
(1985).