An undated handout provided to the media on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2008, shows 'Portrait of Chales Darwin' by John Collier

Charles Darwin, the 19th-century scientist whose theories are opposed by U.S. Christian fundamentalists, is in the spotlight next year at the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut.

```Endless Forms': Charles Darwin, Natural Science and the Visual Arts'' (Feb. 12- May 3, 2009) examines art before and after the scientist's theories, and how it evolved. Organizers are well aware of the underlying debate.

``Without question, Darwinian thinking has been discredited,'' said Amy Meyers, the center's director, at a London lunch in the library of the affiliated Paul Mellon Centre. ``It's very important for us to critique this new flaring up of fear over Darwin's ideas, and to really question the sets of ideas that are at play within the fundamentalist community.''

Next year is the bicentenary of Darwin's birth, and 150 years since the publication of his ``On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.'' The scientist is buried in London's Westminster Abbey.

The exhibition surveys how artists' world-view changed with Darwin. Early images include depictions by Turner and Thomas Cole of Noah's flood, considered at the time to be the moment of the world's creation; later works include a lithograph by Odilon Redon of a one-eyed creature, half-man, half-monkey, inspired by Darwin's writings on human beings' ape origins.

The show will feature beetles, cases of taxidermy, and skulls of Darwin's own pigeons, along with works by Monet, Degas and Cezanne. Loans will come from some 100 institutions including Tate Britain, the British Museum, and the Louvre Museum.

The show has been co-curated by the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England, where it will later travel to (June 16 - Oct. 4, 2009.)