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Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was a British naturalist who achieved lasting fame by convincing the scientific community of the occurrence of evolution and proposing the theory that this could be explained through natural and sexual selection. This theory is now considered the central explanatory paradigm in biology. He developed an interest in natural history while studying first medicine, then theology, at university. Darwin's five-year voyage on the Beagle and subsequent writings brought him eminence as a geologist and fame as a popular author. His biological observations led him to study the transmutation of species and, in 1838, develop his theory of natural selection. Fully aware that others had been severely punished for such "heretical" ideas, he only confided in his closest friends and continued his research to meet anticipated objections. However, in 1858 the information that Alfred Russel Wallace had developed a similar theory forced early joint publication of the theory. His 1859 book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (usually abbreviated to The Origin of Species) established evolution by common descent as the dominant scientific explanation of diversification in nature. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society, continued his research, and wrote a series of books on plants and animals, including humankind, notably The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex and The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.
Related Links • Darwin's
work on orchids
Charles Darwin Quotes A scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections, – a mere heart of stone. Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science. We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities... still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created parasitic wasps with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars. A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life. Nothing before had ever made me thoroughly realise, though I had read various scientific books, that science consists in grouping facts so that general laws or conclusions may be drawn from them. I love fools’ experiments. I am always making them. Believing as I do that man in the distant future will be a far more perfect creature than he now is, it is an intolerable thought that he and all other sentient beings are doomed to complete annihilation after such long-continued slow progress. I am turned into a sort of machine for observing facts & grinding out conclusions. It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.
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