Professor David Archibald: Charles Darwin
Paleontologist and SDSU Professor David Archibald will discuss his new book Charles Darwin. In 1859 Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species. In this bedrock of biology books Darwin carved a new origin-story for all life: evolution rather than creation. In his new biography J. David Archibald describes and analyzes Darwin’s prodigious body of work, as well as his equally productive home life – he lived with his wife and seven children in the hectic environs of Down House, south of London. There among his family and friends Darwin continued to experiment and write many more books on orchids, sex, emotions, and earthworms until his death in 1882, when he was honored with burial at Westminster Abbey.
David Archibald taught at Yale University from 1977-83, is Professor Emeritus of Biology, San Diego State University, and Curator of Mammals at the SDSU Vertebrate Collections. He is the author or co-editor of many books including Charles Darwin: A Reference Guide to His Life and Works; Origins of Darwin's Evolution: Solving the Species Puzzle Through Time and Place; Dinosaur Extinction and the End of an Era: What the Fossils Say; and Aristotle's Ladder, Darwin's Tree: The Evolution of Visual Metaphors for Biological Order.