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It seems as if Darwin has almost become a mythological type figure in society today. His work being seen as absolute truth for some (with an almost religious fervor) and complete bullox to others. It's odd that something that was written as an observation of a trend can be taken as the true hypothesis and seen as factual although there have been many amendments on his original ideas. I read Origin of Species in high school, and re-read it again for class. I thought, even then, that he sounded more like a scientist merely stating his observations- not trying to tell people what exactly they have to believe his ideas as the perfect truth. Darwin preludes many of his observations with disclosures saying that he may not be completely correct in his assumptions, but he's trying. How could people turn that into Darwinism?

The cultural significance of Darwin in our day and age makes it seem like he wrote non-fiction, but all in all, he wrote fiction with non-fiction tendencies because it was an observation of the ecology that he studying. I've read his other books on Plants and Animals, and found that they were much like Origin of the Species. He is making his conclusions on the history of life, but haven't people been doing that for centuries? Yet those stories are still seen as being fictional- even though they are the observations of some about the beginning of life.

Seeing cars driving by with the fish and "Darwin" firmly written in the middle always interests me (well, bumper stickers in general do.) It is the sign that they see evolution as not only written by one man, but that a theory of science is the same as a theory of religion. 

Where does religion start and science stop?