United Kingdom 2 Pounds Silver Coin 2009 Charles Darwin
Struck by the Royal Mint to commemorate the 200th Anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin
This 2009 commemorative £2 coin celebrates the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin as well as the 150th anniversary of the publication of "On the Origin of Species". The reverse of the coin, designed by Suzie Zamit, features a profile portrait of Charles Darwin and a chimpanzee together with the denomination TWO POUNDS, the year dates 1809 and 2009 and DARWIN. The presentation folder tells the story of Charles Darwin’s life and achievements and includes a reproduction of original drawings he made during his travels.
Obverse: The Fourth Portrait of Queen Elizabeth II facing right, wearing the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland tiara, designed by Ian Rank Broadley, FRBS, FSNAD, whose initials IRB appear under the head, as used on all British coins from 1998.
The legend (inscription) reads: ELIZABETH II D G REG FID DEF TWO POUNDS
Edge Inscription: ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 1859
Country: United Kingdom.
Face value: 2 Pounds.
Diameter: 28.4mm.
Weight: 12.0g.
Diameter: 28.4 mm.
Composition: Silver 925/1000.
Edge: Milled.
Mintage: 5000.
Obverse Designers: Ian Rank-Broadley.
Reverse Designer: Suzie Zamit.
History Of The £2
The first base metal £2 coin was issued in the United Kingdom in 1986 to commemorate the Thirteenth Commonwealth Games which that year were held in Scotland. Commemorative £2 coins continued to be issued in single colour nickel-brass for special occasions. After a review of the United Kingdom coinage in 1994, it emerged that there was a requirement for a general circulation £2 coin. A consultation process took place with the vending machine industry, members of the public and special interest groups such as the RNIB and Age Concern. The consensus of opinion from the consultation favoured a bi-colour coin because it would be easily distinguishable from the other coins in circulation. The bi-metallic £2 coin was eventually launched on 15 June 1998 and millions were released into circulation.
On the Origin of Species
On the Origin of Species (or more completely, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life), published on 24 November 1859, is a work of scientific literature by Charles Darwin which is considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology. Darwin's book introduced the scientific theory that populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection. It presented a body of evidence that the diversity of life arose by common descent through a branching pattern of evolution. Darwin included evidence that he had gathered on the Beagle expedition in the 1830s and his subsequent findings from research, correspondence, and experimentation.
Various evolutionary ideas had already been proposed to explain new findings in biology. There was growing support for such ideas among dissident anatomists and the general public, but during the first half of the 19th century the English scientific establishment was closely tied to the Church of England, while science was part of natural theology. Ideas about the transmutation of species were controversial as they conflicted with the beliefs that species were unchanging parts of a designed hierarchy and that humans were unique, unrelated to other animals. The political and theological implications were intensely debated, but transmutation was not accepted by the scientific mainstream.
The book was written for non-specialist readers and attracted widespread interest upon its publication. As Darwin was an eminent scientist, his findings were taken seriously and the evidence he presented generated scientific, philosophical, and religious discussion. The debate over the book contributed to the campaign by T. H. Huxley and his fellow members of the X Club to secularise science by promoting scientific naturalism. Within two decades there was widespread scientific agreement that evolution, with a branching pattern of common descent, had occurred, but scientists were slow to give natural selection the significance that Darwin thought appropriate. During "the eclipse of Darwinism" from the 1880s to the 1930s, various other mechanisms of evolution were given more credit. With the development of the modern evolutionary synthesis in the 1930s and 1940s, Darwin's concept of evolutionary adaptation through natural selection became central to modern evolutionary theory, and it has now become the unifying concept of the life sciences.
Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species has been voted the most influential academic book ever written, hailed as “the supreme demonstration of why academic books matter” and “a book which has changed the way we think about everything”. A group of academic booksellers, publishers and librarians conducted the survey in advance of Academic Book Week in the United Kingdom.