ĭarwin spent the summer of 1825 as an apprentice doctor, helping his father treat the poor of Shropshire, before going to the well-regarded University of Edinburgh Medical School with his brother Erasmus in October 1825. From September 1818, he joined his older brother Erasmus in attending the nearby Anglican Shrewsbury School as a boarder. The eight-year-old Charles already had a taste for natural history and collecting when he joined the day school run by its preacher in 1817. Robert Darwin, a freethinker, had baby Charles baptised in November 1809 in the Anglican St Chad's Church, Shrewsbury, but Charles and his siblings attended the local Unitarian Church with their mother. A chalk drawing of the seven-year-old Darwin in 1816, with a potted plant, by Ellen Sharplesīoth families were largely Unitarian, though the Wedgwoods were adopting Anglicanism. Erasmus Darwin had praised general concepts of evolution and common descent in his Zoonomia (1794), a poetic fantasy of gradual creation including undeveloped ideas anticipating concepts his grandson expanded. His grandfathers Erasmus Darwin and Josiah Wedgwood were both prominent abolitionists. He was the fifth of six children of wealthy society doctor and financier Robert Darwin and Susannah Darwin ( née Wedgwood). Darwin's scientific discovery is the unifying theory of the life sciences, explaining the diversity of life.įurther information: Charles Darwin's education and Darwin–Wedgwood familyĭarwin was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, on 12 February 1809, at his family's home, The Mount. However, many favoured competing explanations that gave only a minor role to natural selection, 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 a majority of the educated public had accepted evolution as a fact.
#4 SINGLE SUBJECT SPIRAL NOTEBOOKS SERIES#
His research on plants was published in a series of books, and in his final book, The Formation of Vegetable Mould, through the Actions of Worms (1881), he examined earthworms and their effect on soil.ĭarwin published his theory of evolution with compelling evidence in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species. In 1871, he examined human evolution and sexual selection in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, followed by The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872).
Darwin's work established evolutionary descent with modification as the dominant scientific explanation of diversification in nature. He was writing up his theory in 1858 when Alfred Russel Wallace sent him an essay that described the same idea, prompting immediate joint submission of both their theories to the Linnean Society of London. Although he discussed his ideas with several naturalists, he needed time for extensive research and his geological work had priority. Puzzled by the geographical distribution of wildlife and fossils he collected on the voyage, Darwin began detailed investigations and, in 1838, devised his theory of natural selection. Publication of his journal of the voyage made Darwin famous as a popular author. His five-year voyage on HMS Beagle from 1831 to 1836 established Darwin as an eminent geologist, whose observations and theories supported Charles Lyell's concept of gradual geological change. His studies at the University of Cambridge's Christ's College from 1828 to 1831 encouraged his passion for natural science. ĭarwin's early interest in nature led him to neglect his medical education at the University of Edinburgh instead, he helped to investigate marine invertebrates. Darwin has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history and was honoured by burial in Westminster Abbey. In a joint publication with Alfred Russel Wallace, he introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding. His proposition that all species of life have descended from a common ancestor is now generally accepted and considered a fundamental concept in science.
Charles Robert Darwin FRS FRGS FLS FZS JP ( / ˈ d ɑːr w ɪ n/ DAR-win 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology.
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