CHARLES DARWIN 1809-1882

            Charles Darwin, British scientist who laid the foundation of modern evolutionary the­ory with his concept of the development of all forms of life through the slow-working process of natural selection*.

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*Natural selection — the process whereby gene frequencies in a population change through certain individuals producing more descendants than others because they are better able to survive and reproduce in their environment.

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               His work was of major influence on the life and earth sciences and on modern thought in general.

               Born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England on February 12, 1809, Darwin was the fifth child of a wealthy and sophisticated English family. His maternal grandfather was the successful china and pottery en­trepreneur Josiah Wedgewood* his paren­tal grandfather was the well-known 18^th- century physician and savant Erasmus Darwin**.

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*Wedgewood, Josiah (1730-1795) — English potter, developed firm into one of world’s leading producers of domestic and decorative ceramics.

** Darwin, Erasmus (1731-1802) — English physician and poet.

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               After graduating from the elite school at Shrewsbury in 1825, young Dar­win went to the University of Edinburgh to study medicine. In 1827 he dropped out of medical school and entered the Univer­sity of Cambridge, in preparation for becoming a clergyman of the Church of Eng­land. There he met two stellar figures: Adam Sedgwick and John Stevens Henslow*.

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*Sedgwick, Adam (1785-1873) — English geologist who con­tributed grteatly to understanding the stratigraphy of the British Isles.

Henslow, John Stevens (1796-1861) — English botanist, introduced new methods of teaching botany.

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              Henslow not only helped build Dar­win’s self-confidence but also taught his student to be a meticulous and painstak­ing observer of natural phenomena and collector of specimens. After graduating from Cambridge in 1831, the 22-year-old Darwin was taken aboard the English sur­vey ship, HMS Beagle, largely on Henslow’s recommendation, as an unpaid naturalist on a scientific expedition around the world.

               Darwin joined the crew of HMS Beagle on December 27, 1831. The five-year expedi­tion collected hydrographic, geologic and meteorological data from South America and many other regions around the world. Dar­win’s own observations on this voyage led to the theory of natural selection. Darwin’s job as naturalist aboard the Beagle gave him the opportunity to observe the various geologi­cal formation found on different continents and islands along the way, as well as a huge variety of fossils and living organisms. In his geological observations, Darwin was most impressed with the effect that natural forc­es had on shaping the earth’s surface.

                As the time, most geologists adhered to the so-called catastrophist theory that the earth had experienced a succession of creations of animal and plant life, and that each cre­ation has been destroyed by a sudden catas­trophe, such as an upheaval or convulsion of the earth’s surface. According to this theory, the most recent catastrophe, Noah’s flood, wiped away all life except those forms taken into the ark. The rest were visible only in the form of fossils. In the view of the catastrophists, species were individual­ly created and immutable, that is, unchange­able for all time.

                The catastrophist viewpoint was challenged by the English geologist Sir Charles Lyell*, who maintained that the earth’s surface is undergoing constant change, the result of natural forces operating uniformly over long periods.

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*Lyell, Sir Charles (1797-1875) — British geologist. Regard­ed as father of modern geology.

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               Aboard the Beagle, Darwin found himself fitting many of his observations into Lyell’s general uniformitarian view. Beyond that, however, he realized that some of his own observations of fossils and living plants and animals cast doubt on the Lyell — support­ed view that species were specially created. He noted, for example, that certain fossils of supposedly extinct species closely resem­bled living species in the same geographical area. In the Galapagos Islands, off the coast of Ecuador, he also observed that each is­land supported its own form of tortoise, mockingbird, and finch; the various forms were closely related but differed in struc­ture and eating habits from island to is­land. Both observations raised the question, for Darwin, of possible links between dis­tinct but similar species.

             After returning to England in 1836, Dar­win began recording his ideas about change-bility of species. Darwin’s explanation for how organisms evolved was brought into sharp focus after he read the works by the British economist Thomas Robert Malthus*, who explained how human populations remain in balance.

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*Malthus, Thomas Robert (1766-1834) — an English econo­mist famous for his work on population study. He is remem­bered especially for starting that if the world's population is not controlled, either by disease and wars or by planning, it will grow faster than the world’s food supply.

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              Malthus argued that any increase in the availability of food for basic human survival could not match the geo­metrical rate of population growth. The lat­ter, therefore, had to be checked by natural limitations such as famine and disease, or by social actions such as war.

              Darwin immediately applied Malthus’s ar­gument to animals and plants, and by 1838 he had arrived at a sketch of a theory of evolution through natural selection. For the next two decades he worked on his theory and other natural history projects. In 1839, he married his cousin Emma Wedgewood, and soon after, moved to a small estate, Downe House, outside London. There he and his wife had ten children.

              Darwin’s theory was first announced in 1859. His complete theory was published in 1859, in On the Origin of Species. Often referred to as the “book that shook the world”, the Origin sold out on the first day of the publication and subsequently went through six editions.

             This book explained the evolutionary proc­ess through the principles of natural selec­tion and aroused bitter controversy because it disagreed with the literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis in the Bible. Dar­win’s work marked a turning point in many of the sciences, including physical anthro­pology and paleontology. It caused a revo­lution in biological science and greatly af­fected religious thoughts.

              Darwin spent the rest of his life expanding on different aspects of problems raised in the Origin. His later books published in 1868-1872 were detailed expositions of topics that had been confined to small sections of the Origin. The importance of his work was well recog­nized by his contemporaries; Darwin was elect­ed to the Royal Society (1839) and the French Academy of Sciences (1878). He was also honoured by burial in Westminster Abbey after he died in Downe, Kent, on April 19, 1882.