Charles Darwin: An English Naturalist | Earth 520: Plate Tectonics and People: Foundations of Solid Earth Science Charles Darwin: An English Naturalist "I am turned into a sort of machine for observing facts and grinding out conclusions." -Charles Darwin- Image Source: Biographical Information: Charles Robert Darwin was born in February of 1809 in Shrewsbury, England and was the 5th of 6 children in his family. Darwin was born into a very wealthy family that had a lot of connections. His family members had all been very successful and Darwin lived a priviledged childhood. Charles’s father was alive for most of his adult life and worked as a local physician and a financer. Unfortunately, his mother died at a very young age, when she was only 52 years old. Darwin attended a nearby board school in Shrewsbury during his childhood, but after graduating that school, he decided to attend Edinburgh University in October 1985, along with his own brother to study medicine. Darwin was studying to become a physician, much like his successful father had done.

While at Edinburgh, Darwin found himself studying marine invertebrates with Robert Grant, one of the most well known biologists of the early 19th century. Darwin soon realized he did not like the field of medicine after he couldn’t stand to see blood or suffering of humans for a regular basis and believed surgery was a form of human brutality, so he quickly left the medical field of study. Immediately after Darwin left the medicine field, his own father proposed that he get more involved in the church as an alternative. Darwin liked the idea of being able to pursue natural history, and in 1827 became a student of Cambridge University to study theology, with the goal later on of becoming an Anglican parson. While at Cambridge, Darwin studied a lot of the scientific ideas and papers written by geologist Adam Sedgwick and naturalist John Henslow, who were big believers in the idea of evolution of natural species. At the time, Darwin was not a true believer in evolution yet but was exposed to the scientific beliefs behind the theory quite often in his studies.

The Residence of Charles Darwin his 1st year at Cambridge University Image Source: From 1831-1836, Darwin was able to journey on the HMS Beagle, a ship whose mission was to travel around the world in search of new scientific discoveries. Darwin served as the naturalist on board the ship, collecting thousands of specimens from various countries around the world, mostly being from South America. Darwin later called this trip across the oceans, “by far the most important voyage of my life.” Throughout Darwin’s life he continued to study the natural world and later published his most famous book, On The Origin of Species to help explain how evolutionary selection occurred amongst throughout the course of their existence on Earth. “Natural Selection” and “Survival of the Fittest” were some of the scientific terms that originated from his studies published in the book. These theories have laid the ground work for modern scientific evolutionary studies and research going on years later. Darwin lived to be 73 years old, dying in April of 1882 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His legacy in the scientific community continues to be respected and celebrated for all the significant contributions he made throughout his lifetime. *Who Wants to Live a Million Years?

Interactive Darwin Game* CLICK THE LINK BELOW TO LEARN MORE ABOUT CHARLES DARWIN IN A FUN, INTERACTIVE GAME!! Contributions to Plate Tectonic Theory / Solid Earth Geophysics: Charles Darwin’s education at both Edinburg and Cambridge was never as a geologist, but he found himself studying the geological structures because of his natural curiosity for science. He was said to be “self-taught” in the concepts of geological phenomena and structures. Darwin was actually an accomplished geologist before he became a successful biologist, publishing his most famous work. He actually published a few pieces of work on the geological structure of coral reefs and volcanic structures of off the coast of South America in the Galapagos Islands. Darwin began his HMS Beagle voyage under the captain Robert FitzRoy. A 3-D digital representation of the HMS Beagle - the ship Darwin spent 5 years traveling and studying off the coast of South America Media Source: As a gift aboard the ship, FitzRoy actually gave Darwin the first volume of Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology to help him become better acquainted with that field of science.

One of Lyell’s principles in his textbook was related to a steady state, non-directional Earth where land alteration processes such as deposition, erosion, and uplift altered and changed a landscape. One of Darwin’s early exposures to geologic formations was in February of 1835 when he experienced a strong earthquake while exploring the area of Chile. Darwin claims that he saw visual evidence of a strong uplift of several feet in the area he was located in. In further studies done by Darwin and principles discussed in the text, Darwin hypothesized that the coral reefs in the Pacific Ocean developed because they were bordering other landmasses that were being subducted downwards – producing three formation stages of coral reefs (Image 1). This related to our modern ideas of plate tectonics because along fault boundaries there is direct evidence of landmasses creating a subduction zone. This hypothesis was made remarkably before he even saw the coral reef himself. Darwin was also able to test his coral reef hypothesis a year later in the Cocos Islands, off the Northwestern coast of Australia, by examining the reef’s structure that formed in this set of islands also.

Image 1: Darwin's View of the 3 Stages of Coral Reefs Cross-section views of the 3 stages of coral reefs that Darwin studied along the coastlines of specific continents Key: 1: Fringing Reef (Top) 2. Coral Reef (Middle) 3. Barrier Reef (Bottom) Image Source: In 1842, Charles Darwin published a book titled, The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs. In this book, Darwin published a map inside of the southwest Pacific Ocean. Darwin’s hypothesis proposed that three stages of coral reefs (fringing, barrier, and atoll) were concentrated along certain coastlines and boundary lines of specific continents. Darwin discovered that coral reefs have a lot to do with the geology of this part of the Pacific Ocean. Fringing reefs, he claimed, were concentrated along continents that showed evidence of rising geologic areas. On the other hand, atoll and barrier reefs are more located in the central parts of an ocean in which the landmass nearby is sinking. We know today through the plate tectonic theory that subsidence of a landmass is due to the cooling of that material.

When the material begins to cool, its density begins to increase as it moves farther away from an active ridge or hot spot. Other Interesting Scientific Contributions: Darwin was a very rigorous naturalist his entire life, devoting a good majority of scientific efforts in the field of biology. His major scientific theories are listed below. On The Origin of Species: This is the book that Darwin is most famous and well known from. Many scientists consider this text as the foundation behind the concepts of evolutionary biology. In the text, Darwin shares his research and findings that all work together to support the idea of “Evolution.” Evolution: The theory of evolution states that as species exist on our planet, they adapt and change to existing conditions that are present in a specific moment in time. In order to survive to the constant changing environment, species must change gradually over time in order to continue their own existence. Natural Selection: The theory of natural selection dealt with evolution amongst species on our planet.

His theory of natural selection states, “Evolutionary changes come through the prediction of variation in each generation and differential survival of individuals with different combinations of these variable characters.” He goes on to further explain that the species that have more opportunities to reproduce their offspring will have a greater probability of survival, which in turn, helps the offspring acquire these similar traits. When Darwin explored the Galapagos Islands off the coast of South America, he began observing and collecting data for a bird that was a very common inhibitor of the island. Darwin studied a species of Finches – a small bird that commonly was seen flying around. Darwin did not realize it while he was on the islands, but he finally concluded there were a total of 14 species of finches on the island itself, but all with a common ancestor (Image 2). Image 2: Darwin's Finches A set of Darwin's finches that are classified as different versions of the same bird with similar characteristics and a common ancestor. Image Source: Common Descent: This theory states that each type of organism comes from some ancient ancestor and have changed or diversified since the beginning of their existence.

Species Multiply: This theory states that in order to diversify the various organisms we have on our planet, one type of species has to diverge until they become two separate species. Each time the new species are formed, they are slightly different from the original set. Gradualism: This theory states that evolution occurs through many small changes of the populations of species and that any new species that are created don’t happen instantly and suddenly. Cool Stuff About Charles Darwin: Darwin Ate An Owl Once: While he was at Cambridge University, he joined a club called the, “Gourmet Club.” This club’s purpose was to meet once a week and eat animals you can’t typically find on a standard restaurant menu. Darwin Didn’t Come Up With The Phrase: “Survival of the Fittest” Herbert Spencer, a contemporary and philosopher of Darwin came up with the phrase. Spencer wrote Principles of Biology in 1864 and came up with this phrase as he extended Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection into his text. Darwin Played A LOT of Backgammon! Once Darwin returned from his voyage to South America and other parts of the world, he developed a lifelong sickness that kept him in bed for long periods of time.

To help alleviate the symptoms of his illness, he developed a very strict daily schedule where he would play backgammon every single night between 8 and 8:30 p.m. He kept the score of every game he played for many years after he got ill. Darwin Married His 1st Cousin: The two married each other and actually kept their marriage going for over 40 years! (Wish you could say that about marriages today) Darwin actually wrote a list of pros and cons to marrying Emma Wedgewood, of which the original document is available from this website: "10 Fun Facts About Charles Darwin." Neatorama. 4 Dec. 2008. Web. 24 May 2012. < . "Charles Darwin & Evolution." Charles Darwin & Evolution. Christ's College. Web. 24 May 2012. < . "Charles Darwin: A Centennial Tribute | NCSE." Charles Darwin: A Centennial Tribute | NCSE. National Science Center for Education. Web. 24 May 2012. < . "Charles Darwin History." BBC News. BBC. Web. 24 May 2012. < .

"Darwin: Who Wants to Live a Million Years?: Science Channel." The Science Channel. Discovery Communications LLC, 2012. Web. 23 May 2012. < . "Darwin's Theory Of Evolution." Darwin's Theory Of Evolution. AllAboutScience.org. Web. 24 May 2012. < . "Early Theories of Evolution: Darwin and Natural Selection." Early Theories of Evolution: Darwin and Natural Selection. 23 Feb. 2012. Web. 24 May 2012. < . Charles Darwin | The University of Edinburgh Contact us Charles Darwin Perhaps surprisingly, Charles Darwin did not study biology or “natural history”. He enrolled at the University to study medicine in 1825, when he was just 16 years old. Darwin’s father and grandfather had both studied medicine. Edinburgh had the reputation of providing the best medical education in Britain, but Darwin did not enjoy his studies. He left after two years without graduating. The Plinian Society and Robert Grant However, while at Edinburgh Darwin became a member of a student natural history group called the Plinian Society.

He spent time with Robert Grant, a marine biologist and sponge expert, and assisted Grant in his studies of the marine life of the coastline near Edinburgh. Darwin’s work with Grant is considered to have had an influence on his thinking. It was while at Edinburgh that Darwin wrote his first scientific paper, on bryozoans, which he presented to the student society. The Beagle and the theory of evolution Four years after leaving Edinburgh, Darwin joined HMS Beagle as the ship's naturalist, for a round the world voyage under the command of Captain Robert Fitzroy. On the voyage he observed and collected plants, animals, rocks and fossils. We now know that Darwin came up with his theory of evolution by natural selection soon after his return home from the Beagle voyage, but it was many years before he had accumulated enough evidence to publish his work. Darwin200 Darwin’s 200th anniversary fell in February 2009. "Darwin200" is a national series of events that will celebrate the impact that Darwin's ideas about evolution, as well as his approach to the understanding of the natural world and his outstanding example as a scientist, continue to have on our lives.

The celebrations centred on February 2009, but will build up to November 2009, which is the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin's famous work "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection". Related Links This article was published on Aug 13, 2015 Charles Darwin Attends University of Edinburgh | World History Project Oct 1825 Charles Darwin Attends University of Edinburgh Darwin went to Edinburgh University in October 1825 to study medicine, accompanied by Eras doing his external hospital study. The city was in an uproar over political and religious controversies, and the competitive system where professors were dependent on attracting student fees for income meant that the university was riven with argumentative feuds and conflicts. The monopoly held by established medical professors was challenged by private independent schools, with new ideas of teaching by dissecting corpses giving clandestine trade to bodysnatchers (just shortly before the Burke and Hare scandal).[9] He attended the official university lectures, but complained that most were stupid and boring, and found himself too sensitive to the sight of blood.

He was disgusted by the dull and outdated anatomy lectures of professor Alexander Monro tertius, and later regretted his failure to persevere and learn dissection. Munro's lectures included vehement opposition to George Combe's daringly materialist ideas of phrenology. As the exception to the general dullness, the spectacular chemistry lectures of Thomas Charles Hope were greatly enjoyed by the brothers, but they did not join a student society giving hands-on experience. Darwin regularly attended clinical wards in the hospital despite his great distress about some of the cases, but could only bear to attend surgical operations twice, rushing away before they were completed due to his distress at the brutality of surgery before anaesthetics. He was long haunted by the memory, particularly of an operation on a child.[10][9] The brothers kept each other company, and made extensive use of the library. Darwin's reading included novels and Boswell's Life of Johnson. He had brought natural history books with him, including a copy of A Naturalist's Companion by George Graves, bought in August in anticipation of seeing the seaside, and he borrowed similar books from the library.

The brothers went for regular Sunday walks on the shores of the Firth of Forth and Darwin kept a diary recording their finds, which included a sea mouse and a cuttlefish.[11] Darwin wrote home that "I am going to learn to stuff birds, from a blackamoor... he only charges one guinea, for an hour every day for two months". These lessons in taxidermy were with the freed black slave John Edmonstone. Darwin often sat with him to hear tales of the South American rain-forest of Guiana, and later remembered him as "a very pleasant and intelligent man."[12][13] During his summer holiday Charles read Zoönomia by his grandfather Erasmus Darwin, which his father valued for medical guidance but which also proposed evolution by acquired characteristics. In June he went on a walking tour in North Wales. [edit]Lamarckian anatomy In his second year Charles became active in student societies for naturalists. The 21-year-old radical demagogue William A. F. Browne and the 19-year-old John Coldstream both proposed Darwin for membership of the Plinian Society on 21 November 1826.

John Coldstream came from an evangelical background and shared Darwin's fascination with sea life. Darwin was elected to its Council on 5 December, and at the same meeting Browne presented an attack on Charles Bell's Anatomy and Physiology of Expression (which in 1872 Darwin would target in The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals). Darwin became a keen student of Robert Edmund Grant, a Lamarckian anatomist. Grant had cited Erasmus Darwin in his doctoral thesis and shared the evolutionist ideas of Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire on evolution by acquired characteristics. Charles joined Grant in pioneering investigations of the life cycle of marine invertebrates on the shores of the Firth of Forth. Darwin and Grant collected tiny animals from the rock pools and walked along the rocky shore at Prestonpans where Grant had taken a house. Grant began taking Darwin as a guest to professor Robert Jameson's Wernerian Natural History Society. There Charles saw John James Audubon lecturing on the habits of North American birds.[12] In 1826 Jameson had published an anonymous paper praising "Mr.

Lamarck" for explaining how the higher animals had "evolved" from the "simplest worms" – this was the first use of the word "evolved" in a modern sense. Darwin made a discovery new to science when he observed cilia moving the microscopic larvae of a species of the bryzoan Flustra.

He rushed to tell Grant, confirming Grant's belief that the larvae of these marine animals were free swimming, but was upset when Grant claimed rights to the work.[14] Darwin also made the discovery that black spores often found in oyster shells were the eggs of a skate leech, and was disappointed when Grant announced both finds to the Wernerian on 24 March 1827 without giving Darwin credit,[15] though Grant in his publication about the leech eggs in the Edinburgh Journal of Science later that year acknowledged "The merit of having first ascertained them to belong to that animal is due to my zealous young friend Mr Charles Darwin of Shrewsbury", the first time Darwin's name appeared in print.[16] Darwin made a presentation of both discoveries to the Plinian Society on 27 March, his first public presentation.[17] Later in the meeting Browne argued that mind and consciousness were simply aspects of brain activity, not "souls" or spiritual entities separate from the body. A furious debate ensued, and later someone deleted all mention of this materialist heresy from the minutes. This was Darwin's first exposure to militant freethought and the storm it stirred up.

During their walks Grant expounded his ideas to Darwin, and on one occasion dropped his guard and praised Lamarck's views on evolution. He explained his radical theory of homology, an extension of the idea of unity of plan in vogue in Paris at the time. He argued that all animals had similar organs differing only in complexity and, controversially, that this showed their common descent. Grant had announced to the Wernerian his identification of the pancreas in a pinned-out sea-slug, showing an organ molluscs shared with mammals. He assumed that as the earth cooled, changing conditions drove life towards higher, hotter blooded forms, as shown by a progressive sequence of fossils, and that study of eggs of the simplest creatures would help reveal monads, elementary living particles. While this showed that naturalists could try to "lift the veil that hangs over the origin and progress of the organic world", Darwin was troubled by Grant's atheism and could see that transmutation was far from respectable.[18] Darwin later recalled "I listened in silent astonishment, and as far as I can judge, without any effect on my mind.

I had previously read the Zoönomia of my grandfather, in which similar views are maintained, but without producing any effect on me."[19] Shortly afterwards Coldstream graduated and went to Paris for his hospital study, where he suffered a mental breakdown, struggling with "the foul mass of corruption within my own bosom", held captive to his body by "corroding desires" and "lustful imaginations". The doctor's report was that though Coldstream had led "a blameless life", he was "more or less in the dark on the vital question of religion, and was troubled with doubts arising from certain Materialist views, which are, alas!, too common among medical students".[20] [edit]Geology and Origin of the Species Darwin also took the popular natural history course of Professor Robert Jameson, learning about stratigraphic geology. Jameson was a Neptunian geologist who taught that strata had precipitated from a universal ocean: he held debates with chemistry professor Thomas Charles Hope who held that granites had crystallised from molten crust, ideas influenced by the Plutonism of James Hutton who had been Hope's friend.

Jameson's view was that "It would be a misfortune if we all had the same way of thinking... Dr, Hope is decidedly opposed to me, and I am opposed to Dr. Hope, and between us we make the subject interesting." Darwin liked Hope and found Jameson a boring speaker. It is not known what he made of Jameson's closing lectures on the "Origin of the Species of Animals". Darwin enjoyed practicals in the Museum and course field trips, learning the sequence of strata. The Museum of Edinburgh University was Jameson's preserve and was then one of the largest in Europe. Darwin assisted and made full use of the collections, spending hours studying, taking notes and stuffing animal specimens. Even medical lectures proved of some use. In January 1826 Darwin had written home complaining of "a long stupid lecture" from Dr. Andrew Duncan secundus about medicine, but the lectures introduced him to Augustin de Candolle's natural system of classification and emphasis on the "war" between competing species. However, he loathed medicine and left in April 1827 without a degree. He toured Scotland, went on to Belfast and Dublin and in May made his first trip to London to visit his sister Caroline.

They joined his uncle Josiah Wedgwood II on a trip to France. There Charles fended for himself for a few weeks in Paris with Browne and Coldstream who was recovering having "found joy and peace in believing". Charles rejoined his relations and then returned to his home at Shrewsbury, Shropshire by July. Charles Darwin: gentleman naturalist Charles Darwin: gentleman naturalist A biographical sketch by John van Wyhe CHARLES Robert Darwin (1809-1882) was born the fifth of six children into a wealthy Shropshire gentry family in the small market town of Shrewsbury. His father, the hugely portly Robert Waring Darwin (1766-1848), was a successful physician and financier and son of the famous poet, Erasmus Darwin . Charles Darwin's mother, Susannah Wedgwood (1765-1817), died when he was eight years old. Darwin, watched over by his elder sisters and maidservants, grew up amidst wealth, comfort and country sports. He attended the nearby Shrewsbury School as a boarder from 1818-1825.

In October 1825 Darwin went to Edinburgh University with his brother Erasmus to study medicine with a view to becoming a physician. While in Edinburgh Darwin investigated marine invertebrates with the guidance of Robert Grant. Darwin's name first appeared in print in one of Grant's articles . Darwin did not like the study of medicine and could not bear the sight of blood or suffering and so his father proposed the church as a respectable alternative. The advantage to becoming a country parson, as Darwin saw it, would be the freedom to pursue his growing interest in natural history. He read several books on Christianity while making up his mind. Some of these survive here . To become ordained in the Church of England he must first obtain a B. A. degree from an English university. On 15 October 1827 he was admitted a member of Christ's College , Cambridge. However, as he had forgotten most of the Greek he had learned at school, and advanced Greek was required in the daily college lectures, Darwin could not come up in October. He studied under a private tutor at home until he was able to translate Greek with some ease. Therefore he did not come into residence in Cambridge until 26 January 1828.

As all of the College rooms were full, Darwin first lived in lodgings for Christ's students above W. Bacon, the tobacconist, on Sidney Street just down the street. (The original building was destroyed in the 1930s but two plaques on the site of a branch of Boot's the chemist mark the location today.) He matriculated, that is signed the role as a member of the University, at the Senate House on 26 February 1828 (not in January as maintained by some biographies). Darwin's student bills were recently discovered at Christ's College and shed new light on his time in Cambridge. Darwin's cousin, William Darwin Fox, was at Christ's just before Darwin and overlapped with him for a short time. See Fox's diary and accounts recording his early time at Christ's here: Image (Reproduced with permission of Gerry Crombie. Photographed by Colin Higgins.) Darwin was never a model student, but he did become a passionate amateur naturalist. He began avidly collecting beetles along with fellow undergraduates. His name appeared in print when some of his records of insect captures were published by Stephens in his British Entomology in 1829.

Darwin's first published word was " Cambridge ". Darwin became the devoted follower of Professor of botany John Stevens Henslow (1796-1861). Through their close friendship Darwin learned a great deal about the practice of natural science. Darwin passed his B.A. examination in January 1831. As he had not fulfilled the residence requirement to take a degree, it was not awarded until 26 April 1831. Shortly thereafter he was taught the rudiments of field geology by Professor Adam Sedgwick during a tour of north Wales. Henslow was able to pass on to Darwin the offer of Commander Robert FitzRoy of travelling on a survey ship, HMS Beagle, as a "scientific person" or naturalist. The round-the-world journey lasted five years. Darwin spent most of these years investigating the geology and zoology of the lands he visited, especially South America, the Galapagos islands, and Pacific oceanic islands. His massive geological diary, the largest document from the voyage of the Beagle, is transcribed only on Darwin Online here . He recorded many of his specimens and observations immediately in field notebooks .

His telegraphic pocket notes were later used in writing up more formal notes, such as his animal notes . Later he recorded his experiences in a diary which became the basis of his famous book Journal of researches (1839) now known as Voyage of the Beagle. (This latter title was first used on the title page of a 1905 edition .) Darwin Online provides the world's largest amount of materials on the Beagle voyage. CLICK HERE Darwin was particularly influenced by the works of men of science like astronomer Sir John Herschel , traveller Alexander von Humboldt and geologist Charles Lyell. Lyell's new book, Principles of Geology (1830-3), profoundly influenced Darwin. Lyell offered not just a new geology but a new way of understanding nature. Lyell showed how tiny, slow, gradual and cumulative change over immense periods of time could produce large changes. Natural, visible, non-miraculous causes should be sought to explain natural phenomenon. Darwin had the opportunity to witness all of these forces, such as erosion, earthquakes and volcanoes, during the Beagle voyage and he became convinced that Lyell's views were correct.

Darwin made several very important discoveries about the geology of South America, volcanic islands and the origins of coral reefs by building on Lyell's ideas. Darwin later wrote in the 2nd edition of his Journal of researches: Where on the face of the earth can we find a spot, on which close investigation will not discover signs of that endless cycle of change, to which this earth has been, is, and will be subjected? Darwin also collected organisms of all sorts which he recorded in his specimen lists and zoology notes . These formed the basis of the five volume series he edited and superintended after returning home The zoology of the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle (1838-43). Geological sections from Darwin's Geological observations on South America . Darwin also unearthed many fossil creatures in South America. He wondered why the fossils resembled the present inhabitants of that continent more than any other species. Where had the new species come from? In fact, why was the world covered with so many different kinds of living things? Why were some very similar to one another and others vastly different?

If species were somehow created to fit their environments, as was then believed, why were jungle species different in Asia, Africa and South America despite the similarity of climate? Darwin did not conceive of a solution during the Beagle voyage, but rather a few years later in London, while writing books on his travels and studying the specimens he had collected. Experts in London, such as the ornithologist John Gould , were able to tell him how many of the specimens of plants and animals he had collected in the Galapagos Islands were unique species, found nowhere else. Clearly they resembled species from South America 600 miles away. It seemed to Darwin as if stray migrants from South America had come to the Galapagos, after the islands rose from the sea as volcanoes, and then changed over time in isolation on the islands. Darwin began to speculate on how new species could arise by natural observable causes. His idiosyncratic eclecticism led him to investigate some unconventional evidence. He made countless inquiries of animal breeders , both farmers and hobbyists like pigeon fanciers, trying to understand how they made distinct breeds of plants and animals.

Gradually Darwin concluded that organisms were infinitely variable, and that the supposed limits or barriers to species was a belief without foundation. In modern terms we would say that Darwin came to accept that life evolves. One conventional view of the time was that species had been created where they are now found, in accordance with the environment. Few men of science then held to the view that there had been only a single species creation event. The fossil evidence seemed to show very many creations had occurred in different geological eras. Darwin then sought to explain how living forms changed over time. He was familiar with the evolutionary speculations proposed earlier by his grandfather Erasmus Darwin and by the great French zoologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck . But already Darwin's theorizing had extended in novel directions. He was thinking of the history of life not as a number of independent lineages somehow impelled to progress upwards from monads to monkeys. Instead Darwin saw all life as a single genealogical tree, branching and rebranching. Thus similarities between different kinds of living things would be expected from their joint ancestry or common descent.

(See Hodge 2005 ) Darwin's speculations and early theorizing were recorded in a series of notebooks similar to those he kept during the Beagle voyage. In September 1838 Darwin read Thomas Malthus's Essay on the Principle of Population (1798). As Janet Browne has written, Darwin was 'clearly following up lines of inquiry relating to individual variation, averages, and chance, as well as seeking information on human population statistics.' ( Browne 1995 , p. 385) Malthus argued that human population growth, unless somehow checked, would necessarily outstrip food production. Population growth was geometrical. For example, two parents might have four children, each of whom could have four children, whose children could also have four children. Thus in four generations there would be an increase from 2 to 4 to 24 to 96 and so forth. The focus of this argument inspired Darwin. He realised that an enormous proportion of living things are always destroyed before they can reproduce. This must be true because every species would otherwise breed enough to fill the earth in a few hundred generations. Instead populations remain roughly stable year after year.

The only way this can be so is that most offspring (from pollen, to seeds and eggs) do not survive long enough to reproduce. Darwin, already concentrating on how new varieties of life might be formed, suddenly realised that the key was whatever made a difference between those that survive to reproduce and those that do not. He came to call this open-ended collection of causes 'natural selection' because it was analogous to breeders choosing which individuals to breed from and thus changing a breed markedly over time. As Darwin wrote in his Autobiography in 1876: 'In October 1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic enquiry, I happened to read for amusement Malthus on Population, and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new species. Here, then, I had at last got a theory by which to work'.

Below is the famous passage from Darwin's notebook where these ideas were first recorded: [Sept] 28th.[1838] Even the energetic language of <Malthus> «Decandoelle» does not convey the warring of the species as inference from Malthus.— «increase of brutes, must be prevented soley by positive checks, excepting that famine may stop desire.—» in Nature production does not increase, whilst no checks prevail, but the positive check of famine & consequently death.. ...—The final cause of all this wedging, must be to sort out proper structure, and adapt it to change.—to do that for form, which Malthus shows is the final effect by means however of volition of this populousness on the energy of man. One may say there is a force like a hundred thousand wedges trying [to] force every kind of adapted structure into the gaps in the economy of nature, or rather forming gaps by thrusting out weaker ones.

[ Notebook D 134e -135e] Or, as Darwin later put it in the Origin of Species (1859): As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form. Therefore only the survivors would pass on their form and abilities. Their characteristics would persist and multiply whilst characteristics of those that did not live long enough to reproduce would decrease. Darwin did not know precisely how inheritance worked—genes and DNA were totally unknown. Nevertheless he appreciated the crucial fact of inheritance. Offspring resemble their parents. Darwin thought in terms of populations of diverse heritable things with no essence—not representatives of ideal types as many earlier thinkers had done. From his observations and experiments with domesticated and wild plants and animals he could find no limits to the extent organic forms could vary and change through generations.

Thus the existing species in the world were related not along a 'chain of being' or separated into artificially separate species categories but were all related on a genealogical family tree through 'descent with modification'. As Darwin wrote in the Origin of Species (1859): why should the species which are supposed to have been created in the Galapagos Archipelago, and nowhere else, bear so plain a stamp of affinity to those created in America? There is nothing in the conditions of life, in the geological nature of the islands, in their height or climate, or in the proportions in which the several classes are associated together, which resembles closely the conditions of the South American coast: in fact there is a considerable dissimilarity in all these respects. On the other hand, there is a considerable degree of resemblance in the volcanic nature of the soil, in climate, height, and size of the islands, between the Galapagos and Cape de Verde Archipelagos: but what an entire and absolute difference in their inhabitants! The inhabitants of the Cape de Verde Islands are related to those of Africa, like those of the Galapagos to America.

I believe this grand fact can receive no sort of explanation on the ordinary view of independent creation; whereas on the view here maintained, it is obvious that the Galapagos Islands would be likely to receive colonists, whether by occasional means of transport or by formerly continuous land, from America; and the Cape de Verde Islands from Africa; and that such colonists would be liable to modification;—the principle of inheritance still betraying their original birthplace. Darwin also identified another means by which some individuals would have descendants and others would not. He later called this sexual selection. This theory explained why the male sex in many species produce colourful displays or specialised body parts to attract females or to compete against other males. Those males who defeat other males, or are selected for breeding by females leave more offspring and so subsequent generations resemble them more than those who succeed less often. As Darwin pointed out, "A hornless stag or spurless cock would have a poor chance of leaving offspring." (Origin p. 88 ) Darwin, deeply studied in the sciences of his time, yet living somewhat independently from his colleagues, was able to think in new ways and to conceive of worlds quite unimaginable to his more orthodox friends.

However, the legend of Darwin as a lone genius discovering evolution on the Galapagos Islands is now known by historians to be a groundless myth. It is now clear that Darwin did not keep his ideas about species changing secret; he discussed them with many friends, family and colleagues during succeeding years. But his full-time occupation before and long after he became an evolutionist was the publication of his recollections and scientific work resulting from the Beagle voyage. Darwin in 1840. Watercolour by George Richmond. Reproduced courtesy of the Darwin Heirlooms Trust. He married his cousin Emma Wedgwood (1808-1896) in 1839. Darwin's many acute and innovative books and articles forged a great reputation as a geologist, zoologist and scientific traveller. His eight years grueling work on barnacles , published 1851-4 enhanced his reputation as an authority on taxonomy as well as geology and the distribution of flora and fauna as in his earlier works. Nevertheless there is no reason to allege, as is so often done, that Darwin needed to supplement his reputation or skills before he could publish his species theory.

Marine invertebrates had been of central interest for Darwin since his student days in Edinburgh. During the Beagle voyage a large percentage of his notes were devoted to them, and he did not give this class of organisms to another expert to identify but kept them for himself. Extract from Darwin's catalogue of microscope slides of barnacle specimens. Darwin conducted breeding experiments with animals and plants and corresponded and read widely for many years to refine and substantiate his theory of evolution. In 1842 he prepared an essay outlining his theory. This was greatly expanded in another essay written in 1844. After completing his work on barnacles Darwin immediately turned to his theory to explain species. He was more than half way through a great work on the subject when he was interrupted on 18 June 1858 by a letter from an English naturalist and collector, Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913). Wallace was then collecting in South East Asia. In an essay enclosed, Wallace described his ideas ' On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely From the Original Type '. Darwin was struck by the similarity.

He sent the letter on to Lyell the same day as requested, and it was decided, together with Darwin's friend J. D. Hooker , to avoid competition for priority, to read unpublished documents by both men in the same presentation. The papers were read, in the absence of Darwin and Wallace, at a meeting of the Linnean Society of London on 1 July 1858 and later published in their Proceedings . Darwin was then urged by friends to publish an 'abstract' or overview of his work-in-progress on natural selection. This abstract became one of the most famous books ever written: On the Origin of Species (1859). Although Darwin convinced most of the international scientific community within 15-20 years that descent with modification, or evolution, was true, many rejected natural selection as the primary mechanism. Darwin was not the first to propose that species can change. A glance at his ' An historical sketch of the progress of opinion on the origin of species ' shows that Darwin made no pretence to have originated or discovered evolution per se. However, Darwin's understanding of branching descent was more accurate, refined and convincing than his predecessors who considered, for example, that the members of one genus might be commonly derived.

We know that a wide popular literature such as George Combe's Constitution of Man (1828) and the anonymous Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844) had already shocked and converted vast popular audiences to belief in the power of natural laws to control the development of nature and society. Historians of science now believe that Darwin's effect was, as James Secord put it, a 'palace coup' amongst elite men of science rather than a revolution. Indeed recent research suggests that the reaction to Darwin's Origin was less of a furore than once believed. ( Fleming & Goodall 2002 ) Nevertheless to the end of his life Darwin was regarded as a great scientific revolutionary who had overturned the ideas of his generation. Darwin, as an unquestionably respectable authority in elite science, publicly threw his weight on the side of evolution, and soon young allies like Hooker, T. H. Huxley , and John Tyndall publicly threw their own weight towards the same position. Darwin's name is so linked with evolution because his works convinced the international scientific community that evolution was true.

In the two decades after the publication of Origin the great majority of the scientific community came to accept that Darwin was right about the evolution of life. But natural selection was often not accepted. In fact, a generation of biologists regarded Darwin as correct in uncovering the evolution of life but mistaken in stressing natural selection. Natural selection's canonisation had to wait until the modern synthesis of Darwinism with Mendelian genetics in the 1930s. Like Combe, Charles Babbage, Robert Chambers, Herbert Spencer and countless other authors before him, Darwin represented his doctrine as furthering the domain of natural laws. We see this in the following epigraph Darwin used for the Origin of Species : " But with regard to the material world, we can at least go so far as this-we can perceive that events are brought about not by insulated interpositions of Divine power, exerted in each particular case, but by the establishment of general laws." W. WHEWELL : Bridgewater Treatise. Darwin even saw the power of his law of natural selection extending beyond life to what we would call psychology, linguistics and to society and history (see for example Descent of Man, 1871, chapter 3 ).

The Origin of Species In the Origin of Species Darwin first tried to convince his readers that organisms are malleable and not fixed natural kinds. He demonstrated that domesticated plants and animals were known to be highly variable and to have changed so much as to be classified as different species if they were not already familiar. He then showed that the existence and abundance of organisms was dependent on many factors, which tended to hold their numbers in check such as climate, food, predation, available space etc. Only then did Darwin set about showing the effects of differential death and survival on reproduction and the persistence and diversification of forms—natural selection. In other words Darwin's theory of evolution has three main elements or requirements: variation, selection and heredity. If all individual life forms are unique, which no one denied, and these differences could make a difference to which organisms lived to reproduce and which did not, then, if these differences could be inherited by offspring, subsequent generations would be descended from those which were lucky enough to survive. An illustrative example is seen in the recent work of biologists in the Galapagos Islands.

During a drought season when no new seeds were produced for an island's finches to eat, the birds were forced to hunt for remaining seeds on the ground. Soon all the visible seeds had been devoured. It so happened that those with slightly thicker beaks than average could turn over stones a little bit better than the rest to find the remaining seeds and so the birds which survived the famine tended to be thicker beaked. When the drought ended and the birds again had young, this new generation had slightly thicker beaks. This is an example of Darwinian evolution observed and measured in the field. (See Weiner. 1994. Beak of the Finch .) Darwin's theory of genealogical evolution (as opposed to earlier theories by Lamarck or Vestiges which entailed independent lineages unfolding sequentially because of an innate tendency towards progress) made sense of a host of diverse kinds of evidence such as the succession of fossil forms in the geological record, geographical distribution of life (biogeography), recapitulative appearances in embryology, homologies like the hand of a man and the wing of a bat, vestigial organs, nesting taxonomic relationships observed throughout the world and so forth.

The famous last paragraph of the Origin of Species is a concise and eloquent précis of Darwin's vision: It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows.

There is 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 most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved. Modern readers often misunderstand the meaning of the title of Darwin's book. They take the origin of species to mean the origin of life. Then it is pointed out that Darwin 'failed' to throw light on the origin of life. Others seem to think that his book is called The origin of THE species i.e. aimed at human beings. But this was not Darwin's aim. Darwin argued that species—that is the different kinds of organisms in the world —come not from multiple unique creation events on each island or particular place—but instead that species are the modified descendants of earlier forms. Darwin demonstrated that the origination of species could be entirely explained by descent with modification and that a host of facts were inconsistent with the belief in spontaneous creations according to environmental circumstances or divine interventions. The reactions to Darwin's evolutionary theories were varied and pronounced.

In zoology, taxonomy, botany, palaeontology, philosophy, anthropology, psychology, literature and religion Darwin's work engendered profound reactions—many of which are still ongoing. Most disturbing of all, however, were the implications for the cherished uniqueness of man. Although Darwin refrained from discussing the derivation of any particular species, including man, in the Origin except for his famous sentence: 'Much light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history' many people who read the book could think only about what this genealogical view of life meant for human beings. This is a subject Darwin later took up in The Descent of Man (1871) and The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872). In these brilliantly original and seminal works Darwin showed that there is no difference of kind between man and other animals, but only of degree. Rather than an unbridgeable gulf, Darwin showed there is a gradation of change not only between man and other animals, but between all organic forms which is a consequence of the gradual change continuously and cumulatively operating over time. Darwin's extraordinary achievements are not restricted to his early scientific works and his evolutionary works.

His keen observation, imagination, curiosity and determination allowed him to make strikingly prescient contributions to ecology, botany and a dozen of what would later be distinct disciplines. Darwin was very impressed by the inter-relatedness of different species, climate and environment. He stressed that the life in any area was the outcome of an amazing history of struggle or 'great battle for life'. He proposed new solutions to how organisms spread across the globe. His numerous discoveries and theories are too numerous to list here. Only by reading his works themselves can one gain an accurate sense of Darwin's achievements. His final book, The formation of vegetable mould through the action of worms (1881), was published the year before his death. In it Darwin made another important contribution, and, characteristically, revealed the amazing complexity and importance of a natural process of gradual accumulation, which no one seemed to have grasped before, and that had all along been under our feet. A myth about Darwin still circulates today—that he repented of evolutionism or converted to Christianity on his deathbed. These stories are usually told by those who would like them to be true, but they are not.

There are no mysteries surrounding Darwin's death; his relatives present at the time wrote detailed accounts of his last hours. The history of the legend, however, is revealed in James Moore, The Darwin legend (1994). For most of his life Darwin was not an atheist, but a deist; that is he believed that a creator had designed the universe and set up natural laws according to which all of nature was unwaveringly governed. It was the pursuit of a man of science to discover the laws by which nature operated. He discussed his religious views in his autobiography (these appear, however, only in the 1958 edition by Nora Barlow with original omissions restored.) Darwin's new study at Down House, engraved shortly after his death by Axel Haig. Charles Darwin was a kind, good-humoured, pleasant man, unassuming and profoundly modest. He suffered from ill health much of his adult life. We will probably never know the causes for his illness. He nevertheless remained driven to understand nature and to remain part of the elite scientific world he respected and admired. Darwin died in April 1882 and is buried in Westminster Abbey.

After his death Darwin's private papers were mostly preserved and many of these were later deposited in Cambridge University Library. See Darwin's papers online . In 1909 over 400 scientists and dignitaries from 167 different countries gathered at Cambridge to celebrate the centenary of Darwin's birth and the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species . The event was an unprecedented success - never before had such a celebration been held, not for an institution or a nation - but for an individual scientist. In the year 2009 the world witnessed another unprecedented celebration of an extraordinary man. See also: Charles Darwin Charles Darwin in 1840. Watercolour by George Richmond. Illustration in Darwin and the Beagle by Alan Moorehead (1969) SO WHO WAS CHARLES DARWIN? Charles Darwin was an English naturalist who travelled thousands of miles to obtain factual evidence to support the theory of evolution. Charles Darwin came from a prosperous family. His father, Robert Darwin was a doctor in Shrewsbury. His grandfathers were Erasmus Darwin, who was an author, philosopher and scientist and Josiah Wedgwood the famous potter.

He was educated at Shrewsbury School and Edinburgh University where he read medicine. Darwin did not complete his studies at Edinburgh and went to Cambridge to read theology. While he was at Edinburgh he developed an interest in natural history which was to continue during his time at Cambridge and for the rest of his life. In 1831 he obtained his degree from Cambridge and in the same year set out as a naturalist on a survey ship called the Beagle. He did not return home until 1836. WHAT EXACTLY DID CHARLES DARWIN DO? The theory of evolution was not new, in fact it had been around since the time of the ancient Greeks, but Charles Darwin is seen as the scientist who developed the modern theory of evolution and together with Alfred Russel Wallace proposed the principle of natural selection. Darwin eventually published his findings in, The Origin of the Species by Natural Selection. WHAT IS NATURAL SELECTION? According to Charles Darwin animals with variations better suited to their environment would have a better chance of survival and ability to breed. They would then pass on the favourable characteristics to their offspring.

This publication caused a great deal of controversy at the time, because it disagreed with the literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis in the Bible. HOW DID CHARLES DARWIN FIND OUT ABOUT NATURAL SELECTION? Charles Darwin sailed from Plymouth on the 27 December 1831 on a journey that was to take him many thousands of miles. He sailed in a ship called the Beagle. The Beagle was not a big ship, it was only about 28 metres long and had to be home to 74 people for the whole voyage. The Beagle at Sydney Harbour, 1841. Watercolour by Owen Stanley. Illustration in Darwin and the Beagle by Alan Moorehead (1969) Darwin took with him a copy of the bible and books by Milton, Humboldt as well as a copy of Lyell's first volume on Principles Of Geology. He also took binoculars, a geological magnifying glass and jars of spirit for preserving specimens. For many of the early weeks at sea, Darwin was extremely sea-sick and could eat nothing but raisins.

When they landed at Cape Verde he began to feel better, as he was able to go ashore and start noting, collecting, recording and observing the bird life, the natives, the plants and the landscape. Darwin's Journey Their voyage continued down the Atlantic coast of South America stopping often for Darwin to carry out important inland excursions, where he would carry out his detailed observations. They eventually rounded Cape Horn which is the southern most point on the mainland of South America, after battling for one month against mountainous seas. They reached the Galapagos Islands in September 1835 and stayed for two months. These isolated islands had only a very small human population and life had stayed unchanged for thousands of years. On the islands Darwin found huge turtles, tortoises and lizards. The animals were not afraid of people and so Darwin was able to study them very closely. This was when Darwin made an extremely interesting observation. He discovered that the animals on the Galapagos Islands were not quite like the animals he had seen in South America. In some ways the lizards were the same as those in South America but were different in others. Darwin also observed this to be the same with the many different types of finches on the islands.

They were different from the finches he had seen in South America. Darwin then found out something even more important. A tortoise or finch on one island was not quite like a tortoise or a finch on another island. By looking at the shell of a tortoise or the beak of a finch you could tell which island it had come from. All the finches had dull coloured feathers and short tails. They all laid four pink and white eggs in nests with small roofs. The difference was they all had different beaks. On one island they had strong thick beaks for cracking open nuts and seeds. On another island eighty kilometres away they had long thin beaks for catching insects. This raised many puzzles for Darwin; he knew that the animals of the Galapagos Islands had come from South America thousands of years ago, but he wanted to know how they had arrived at the islands. He also wanted to know how the plants and seeds had come all the way from the mainland and importantly why the animals were different on each island. Darwin did not find the answers easily; in fact it took him a long time. He decided the birds had originally flown from South America and landed on the Galapagos Islands.

Some finches landed on one island and some on others. They ate the food available on the island. Some islands were rich in seeds which the finches ate. Other islands had many insects and so the finches ate them. Gradually over thousands of years the finches slowly changed to suit the food available on the island on which they lived. This explained why some finches had developed short strong beaks to crack open seeds and why other finches had long thin beaks to catch insects. The next question was where had the food originally come from. Darwin felt that seeds must have floated across the sea from Equador. It would have taken the seeds a month to travel and some scientists of the day felt that seeds could not live for so long in cold salt water. Darwin carried out tests and found that seeds could stand being in cold salt water for over four months and still grow into plants. He had now confirmed that the seeds had come from Equador. Charles Darwin made his discoveries through detailed studies of his subject and by testing his findings until he was satisfied they were accurate.

Charles Darwin Biography - life, history, school, mother, son, book, information, born, college, time Charles Darwin Biography Kent, England English naturalist In The Origin of Species the English naturalist Charles Darwin outlined the theory of natural selection, or "survival of the fittest," as the explanation for the changing of living beings over time. Early life and education Charles Robert Darwin was born on February 12, 1809, in Shrewsbury, England, the fifth child of Robert and Susannah Darwin. His father was a successful doctor, as was his grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, who had a great influence on Charles's later theories. His mother, who was the daughter of the famous pottery maker Josiah Wedgwood (1730–1795), died when Charles was eight. His sisters then raised him. At the age of nine Charles entered Shrewsbury School. He was not a very good student. In 1825 Darwin went to Edinburgh University in Scotland to study medicine, but he soon realized that he was unable to even watch an operation being performed. In 1828 he entered Christ's College, Cambridge, England, to become a minister.

He soon gave up that idea also, but he continued to study. He attended John Stevens Henslow's course in botany (the study of plants), started a collection of beetles that became famous, and read widely. He received his bachelor's degree in 1831. Voyage of the Beagle On Henslow's recommendation Darwin was offered the position of naturalist for the second voyage of H. M. S. Beagle to survey the coast of South America. The Beagle left in December 1831 and returned in October 1836. During the voyage Darwin studied many different plants and animals and collected many specimens, concentrating on location and habits. Darwin was influenced in his Beagle studies by scientist Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology (1830–33), which stated that present conditions and processes were clues to the Earth's past history. Darwin noticed on the trip that certain types of organisms existed only in certain areas and that many organisms had gone through changes that made it easier for them to survive in certain environments. For example, he studied a type of bird called a finch and realized that there were over a dozen different kinds.

The size and shape of the beaks of these birds differed depending on what kind of food was available in the area each lived in. Darwin's Journal of Researches was published in 1839. With the help of a government grant to cover the cost of the illustrations, the Zoology of the Voyage of the Beagle was published in five volumes from 1839 to 1843. A number of scientists wrote articles on fossils (the preserved remains of creatures from an earlier age), living mammals, birds, fish, and reptiles. Darwin edited the work. He contributed information on the habits and ranges of the animals and made notes on the fossils. He also published The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs (1842), for he had studied the coral reefs in the Cocos Islands during the Beagle voyage. Development of ideas on evolution In 1842 and 1844 Darwin wrote short accounts of his views on evolution (change and improvement over time). However, the publication of other related works around the same time caused great controversy (dispute) and criticism of the authors, and Darwin decided the time was not yet right for him to enter the argument.

He decided to wait and do more research. Darwin studied the practices of pigeon breeders, he conducted experiments on differences in plants and animals over time, and he worried about the problem of plant and animal transport across land and water barriers—for he believed in the importance of isolation for the creation of new species. In May 1856 Lyell heard of Darwin's ideas and urged him to write an account with full references. Darwin sent a chapter to Lyell and Sir Joseph Hooker, who were deeply impressed. In June 1858, when Darwin was Charles Darwin. Library of Congress . halfway through his writing, he received an essay from another naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913), containing the theory of evolution by natural selection—the same theory Darwin was working on. Lyell and Hooker arranged for a reading of a combined paper by Wallace and Darwin, and it was presented at a meeting of the Linnaean Society in London, England, on July 1. The paper had little effect. Origin of Species In November 1859 Darwin published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.

His basic idea was that in the struggle to survive, some organisms adapt better than others to their surroundings, and when these survivors give birth they pass their traits on to their offspring, causing species to evolve. An English philosopher (seeker of wisdom) named Herbert Spencer created the phrase "survival of the fittest" to describe this idea. The publication of Darwin's book brought worldwide attention to his theory and created heated dispute. Darwin was aware of all the criticism he received and tried to answer it in the additional five editions of Origin that were produced during his lifetime. In these editions he wanted to avoid trouble and wound up making several changes; this weakened his presentation and made him seem unsure of his views. The first edition is easily the best. Later works In On the Various Contrivances by Which British and Foreign Orchids Are Fertilised by Insects (1862), Darwin showed how the survival of an organism may be dependent on seemingly unimportant qualities. It became hard to say what is "useless" in nature. In The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication (1868), he expanded on a topic he had introduced in Origin.

With The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871) Darwin caused another uproar by suggesting that humans and apes both could be traced to a common ancestor. Darwin became increasingly interested in plants, especially since he had his son Francis to help with the work. Papers Darwin had published in 1864 were collected into The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants (1875), and these ideas were further explained and published as The Power of Movement in Plants (1880). Darwin's last work returned to observations he had made in 1837: The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms, with Observations on Their Habits (1881). Darwin had married Emma Wedgwood, his first cousin, in 1839. Four of their sons became prominent scientists. He died on April 19, 1882, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. For More Information Charles Darwin Biography at Saint Francis University - StudyBlue StudyBlue When was Charles Darwin born and died? 1809-1882 Small market town called Shrewsbury. Advertisement ) What did Charles's father career?

Robert was a physician and a financier. What happened to Darwin at age eight? His mother, Susannah died. What financial situation did he grow up in? He grew up wealthy. How many siblings did he have? born 5th of 6 children. Where did he go to school to be a physician? Edinburgh University with his brother. What did he do in Edinburgh University? He studied marine invertebrates with Robert Grant. Why did Charles not like medicine and what was the alternative? He could not handle blood and gore, and nor could he handle suffering (there was no anesthesia). His father proposed clergy as an alternative. Why could he not go to school as a clergy? He needed to know and understand the Greek language. He got a torture and entered school a year later. What was the school of Clergy called? Christ's College, Cambridge. Who else was at Christ's College? William Darwin Fox, his cousin. At Cambridge College, he became the devoted follower of what study? Botany with John Stevens Henslow. Who invited Darwin along on the HMS Beagle? John Steven Henslow. How long did the HMS Beagle sail for? Five years. What did he do for three years on the HMS Beagle?

Investigating the geology and zoology of the land he visited like South America. What did Charles Lyell discover? Lyell showed how tiny, slow, gradual and cumulative change over immense periods of time could produce large changes. Natural, visible, non-miraculous causes should be sought to explain natural phenomenon. What is so special about Darwin's Birthday? He was born on the same day as Abraham Lincoln, February 12 1809. What was Darwin's job called? He didn't really have a job, but we could cal it English naturalist. If Darwin didn't have a real job, how did he live? He was born int wealth. What was Darwin's grandfather's job? He was a famous poet. What job did his mother have? She was a Wedgwood owner, china pottery. Very expensive and where most of the money came from. How long did he last in medical school? Two years, and then he left. Was Darwin anti religious? No, he just couldn't be a pastor. Not his calling. What was Darwin job on the HMS Beagle? He was a gentlemen naturalist. He made maps, observations and other science stuff.

His real job was to be a companion to the Captain R. Fitzroy. What was the captain of the HMS Beagle? Captain R. Fitzory Who helped him get a job on the HMS Beagle? John Henslow, who was a professor at Cambridge (botany). What happened to Captain R. Fitzory? He committed suicide because he felt directly responsible to Darwin's contribution to the discovery of evolution and thus creationism by the church came down. What were some of the geological things he investigated on his strip on the HMS Beagle? Strata (age of the earth), volcanoes (related to the creation of corals), and Earthquake were he studied strata. What did he observe in South Africa? Savages that he took to England and tried to educate them. He saw similarities and differences. What was the overall outcome of his tripe on the HMS Beagle? He also collected tons of stuff of rocks and organisms and sent them back to England in boxes. He was starting to get a reputation in England before he stepped foot there. There was a lot of time to think, read and reflect on his observations. What did Darwin do after the HMS Beagle tripe?

Studied barnacles for many years. He got to meet the royal society, a minor celebrity for all the stuff he collected. How many children did Darwin have? 10 children, but three died. Why did Darwin set said his book for 16 years? No one really knows, but here are the three theories. 1. Fear from the Anglican church. Didn’t like conficlt. 2. He could have had Chagas’ disease illness. Protests that are called kissing bugs. 3. Wanted to collect more data. What was his most famous book called? “On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favored races in the struggle for life.” What does the book tittle On the Origin of Species mean? Explanation of bio diversity and not where life came from. Who read On the Origin of Species? The educated class and wealthy. * The material on this site is created by StudyBlue users. StudyBlue is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by the academic institution or instructor. Words From Our Students "StudyBlue is great for studying. I love the study guides, flashcards and quizzes.

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Question: What did English naturalist Charles Darwin study at Edinburgh University?
Answer: Medicine