Status Updates From Evolution: The Triumph of a...

There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on, according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and wonderful have been, and are being, evolved. -- Charles Darwin, in On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection

Charles [Darwin] drafted a pro and con balance sheet. He wrote "Marry"on the left side, and "Not Marry"on the right, and "This is the question" in the middle. This nuptial Hamlet reasoned that as a single man he would have more time for science...on the other hand a wife would offer "female chit-chat" and constant companionship in old age. He added up the columns and made his conclusion: "Marry-Marry-Marry. Q.E.D."