![]() Later works, far more controversial, beginning with The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871) addressed human origins, psychology, and culture. First, studies such as Fertilisation of Orchards (1862) and Variation under Domestication (1868) showed natural selection at work in plants and animals. After On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859) introduced Darwin’s theory of evolution via natural selection, later works elaborated on this theme. His first significant work, his report on The Voyage of the Beagle (1839), was followed by many detailed observational studies describing, classifying and explaining geological forms and organisms. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, one of less than a dozen non-royals in history to be granted a British state funeral.Ĭharles Darwin was a prolific scholar who published hundreds of books, articles, technical guides, testimonials, and images over the course of his career. ![]() Despite failing health and the death of several children, Darwin remained a productive and renowned scholar until his death in 1892. The next year, however, Darwin’s On the Origins of Species sold out immediately and became the subject of spirited, sometimes bitter, international debate. ![]() The two men jointly presented their work to the English Linnaean Society in 1858 with little response. Darwin conceived of natural selection by 1838, but was still writing up his theory when he learned that another naturalist, Alfred Russell Wallace, had independently developed a similar idea. He married Emma Wedgwood in 1839 the couple’s first of 10 children was born in 1842.Ĭhronically-ill and devoted to his family, Darwin worked from home in the Surrey countryside, experimenting with the plants in his specially-built greenhouse and exchanging letters and specimens with naturalists worldwide. Upon graduation, however, Darwin joined the surveying expedition of HMS Beagle (1831-1836), inaugurating his career as a gentleman naturalist. After a false start studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh, Darwin received a liberal arts education at Cambridge, the first step towards a potential career in the clergy. The grandson of famed physician Erasmus Darwin and industrialist Josiah Wedgwood, Darwin belonged to a wealthy, well-educated and influential family representing the professional and intellectual elite of his age. (Wikimedia Commons)Ĭharles Robert Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, England on February 12 th 1809, the fifth child of Robert and Susannah Wedgwood Darwin. In this outcome we’ll learn more about his work and how it helped develop the theory of evolution.Portrait of Charles Darwin by George Richmond, late 1830s. Darwin’s scientific discovery is the unifying theory of the life sciences, explaining the diversity of life. However, many favored competing explanations and it was not until the emergence of the modern evolutionary synthesis from the 1930s to the 1950s that a broad consensus developed in which natural selection was the basic mechanism of evolution. By the 1870s, the scientific community and much of the general public had accepted evolution as a fact. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors and, in a joint publication with Alfred Russel Wallace, introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding.ĭarwin published his theory of evolution with compelling evidence in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species, overcoming scientific rejection of earlier concepts of transmutation of species. What you’ll learn to do: Describe the work of Charles Darwin in the Galapagos Islands, especially his discovery of natural selection in finch populationsĬharles Robert Darwin, was an English naturalist, geologist and biologist, best known for his contributions to the science of evolution.
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