Brain Fuel

Charles Darwin triggered a wholesale scientific revolution with the publication of his 1859 classic, The Origin of Species. Yet Darwin was hardly destined to be one of the world’s most revolutionary thinkers. His first schoolmaster pronounced him quite dull. So, how did Charles Darwin spark a revolution? He attended Cambridge University, where he received a “liberal arts education,” that was wildly different from any version available today. The habits of mind formed there interacted with a worldview he absorbed from a family famous for its scientific pursuits. What did Darwin do to increase the likelihood of producing new insights? Were other thinkers in his day organizing the world in the similar ways? This class seeks to answer these questions and others about how Charles Darwin came to ignite a scientific revolution.