In March 1742, British naval officer John Byron witnessed a murder on the western coast of South America. Both Charles Darwin and Robert FitzRoy seized upon Byron's story a century later, and it continues to play an important role in Darwin scholarship today. This essay investigates the veracity of the murder, its appropriation by various authors, and its false association with the Yahgan people encountered during the second voyage of theBeagle(1831–1836). Darwin's use of the story is examined in multiple contexts, (...) focusing on his relationship with the history of European expansion and cross-cultural interaction and related assumptions about slavery and race. The continuing fascination with Byron's story highlights the key role of historical memory in the development and interpretation of evolutionary theory. (shrink)

Historians play it safe. Complex issues are dissected while analytical distance keeps stakeholders at bay. But the relevance of historical research may be lost in caution and failure to engage with a wider audience. We can't afford that. We have too much to offer and too much at stake. We need to take the discussion of science and religion beyond our own professional circles. Peter Harrison's The Territories of Science and Religion gives us an opportunity to do so. We can (...) use his book to understand why people consistently get the relation wrong. However, we need to take the next step ourselves, involve historians in the common academic goal, across disciplines, to make sense of the world around us and make that combined knowledge truly useful. Evolution and natural history might help to that effect. (shrink)