Kathryn Tabb, a graduate of the University of Chicago now working toward a master's of philosophy at the University of Cambridge, has won the Darwin Correspondence Project essay contest and a prize of 1,000 pounds (about 2,000 dollars). The award was established to reward the best student essay on a specific topic in the field of science and religion.
Tabb's essay, "Darwin at Orchis Bank," looked at Darwin's 19th-century work on orchid morphology and pollination and how it connects and contrasts with the contemporary idea of "intelligent design." Darwin wrote a lot about this work in his letters to Asa Gray, a Harvard University botanist and Presbyterian.
The essay will be posted on the project's Web site, which has already made the complete text of nearly 6,000 of Darwin's 14,500 letters available online. —Heather Wax