Contrary to popular belief, Charles Darwin didn’t formulate his theories on evolution until after his voyage in HMS Beagle. And he took nearly twenty years in a painstakingly slow and scientific process to formulate and document his thoughts and views that culminated in his book “The Origin of Species.”

All this was done back home in Down House, England, and surrounded by his note books.

It’s a very different picture than the one painted of a man returning from his voyages bursting with the revelations that man had descended from apes due to startling discoveries in the Galápagos Islands in South America.

Whether you subscribe to his theories or not isn’t pertinent to your enjoyment of the current Darwin exhibit on display at the Museum of Science in Boston. What is pertinent and on display is the process he went through to formulate his theories.

Darwin was mindful of the impact his controversial theories would have on a 19th century Christian England. An England that subscribed to the age of the earth being just a biblical few thousand years old, instead of the millions of years required to support the evolution theory.

Darwin’s work raises perplexing questions that have been debated since they were introduced, and which – at least in my lifetime – are unlikely to be entirely resolved. This is healthy debate and forces ongoing discovery and advancement. So it is with this spirit of an open-mind that all can approach the new traveling exhibit at the Museum of Science as an opportunity to learn and discover the thought process of one of the most remarkable minds of the 19th Century.

The exhibit includes many artifacts and specimens from his Beagle voyage, and a reconstruction of his study at Down House, where Darwin refined his profound idea, steadily filling notebooks with his observations and recording his experiments with pigeons, plants, and other forms of life.

On my visit I took my sons to the exhibit and we also watched the IMAX film called “Galapagos” in the Omni Theater. We all agreed it was one of the best IMAX films we’d seen, and it proved a superb compliment to the exhibit.

The exhibit runs through April 27th, 2007 and admission to Darwin is included with regular exhibit halls admission. Purchase a combination ticket and see the movie as well.

For more information on the Darwin exhibit visit the Museum of Science website at http://www.mos.org/.

For other great attractions while visiting Boston check out my special Boston destinations section by clicking here.

Check back for more suggestions for New England activities next week,

Cliff Calderwood
Executive Director
New England Destination Guide