Today, it is common knowledge that humans and chimpanzees evolved from a common ancestor. But during Charles Darwin's time, it wasn't obvious. Even though atheists at that time didn't agree with Christianity's concept that God made man suddenly out of nothing, they couldn't answer the question of where humans and animals came from. So, several biology enthusiasts tried to find the answer to this question by observing the organisms around them. Their efforts gave rise to the first theories of evolution. But none of these people could provide evidence to back their theories. The first person to provide an evidence-based theory of evolution was Charles Darwin.
Over the next 150 years, due to the improvements in the fields of biology, genealogy, and archaeology, scientists have proven his theory to be true. But at the time he theorized the concept, the world did not know about the existence of genes or DNA. So, how did he come up with the theory of evolution? How did he convince science enthusiasts that he was correct about evolution? Continue reading this biography of Charles Darwin to find out.
Ancestors
In 1719, partial remains of the fossil of a Jurassic era reptile were found. This was the first time a fossil had been found.
The man who brought this discovery to the attention of the Royal Society (the UK's national academy of sciences) was Robert Darwin, Charles Darwin's great grandfather. Even though Robert couldn't explain how the reptile became fossilized, it created huge public interest and would later pave the way for his great-grandson in creating the theory of evolution.
Robert Darwin was a physician, scientist, and lawyer. Robert Darwin's son, Erasmus Darwin was greatly impressed by his father's work. So, Erasmus too, like his father, became a physician. Like his father, Erasmus was also a man of many arts (he was also a physiologist, inventor, and poet).
One of Erasmus Darwin's friends was Josiah Wedgewood, Charles Darwin's grandfather on his mother's side. Josiah was a famous pottery businessman and entrepreneur. He brought in several innovations in the pottery business and became a leader in the industrialization of pottery in Europe.
Josiah's business was an extremely profitable one. But it was also a big undertaking which was very difficult for one person to manage. So, when his business partner died, Josiah felt handicapped and turned to Erasmus Darwin for help. Thus, Erasmus Darwin ended up becoming Josiah Wedgewood's business partner, and hence, the closeness between their families grew. As a result of this close association, one of Erasmus' sons, Robert, married Josiah's daughter Susannah. They had six children.
Early life
Charles Robert Darwin, Robert and Susannah's fifth child, was born in Shrewsbury in England on February 12th, 1809.
Why did Robert name his fifth child Charles?
Robert had an elder brother called Charles Darwin. Just like their father, Erasmus, who was a successful physician, Charles wanted to become a doctor too. So, he joined the University of Edinburgh in 1775 to study medicine. He showed great promise as a medical student. He even got a gold medal in 1778 for the medical dissertation he submitted. But before he could become a doctor, he died the same year, probably because of a cut he obtained while doing an autopsy. Robert grew up looking at his elder brother Charles Darwin and had great respect for him. So, when Charles died, Robert started missing him deeply. Therefore, several years later, when his second son was born, Robert named him Charles Robert Darwin in honor of his elder brother.
Growing up in an open-minded family
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a movement called enlightenment became famous in Europe. It was born out of the belief that science and logic can help people gain more knowledge and understanding than religion and tradition. In the nineteenth century, however, the church rejected the concept of enlightenment and started controlling the scientific establishment in England. Even the schools, which were mostly run by the church, started discouraging students who showed an interest in science.
Charles Darwin was born at such a conservative time. So, one might expect him to have grown up according to the social and religious norms at that time. But Darwin's family was a more open-minded family. Both his grandfathers were abolitionists who fought to end slavery in the UK. His paternal grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, published a book titled Zoonomia. In this medical book, he argues that, with time, a species could transmute into another species. It was a highly controversial and radical idea at the time. Therefore, he came to be known as the scientist with unusual ideas. Hence, having descended from such grandfathers, Charles Darwin learned early to explore and embrace new ideas instead of sticking to traditional norms, even though he had a Christian upbringing.
Education
From a very young age, Darwin was fascinated by nature. So, he spent his time exploring the fields and forest near his home and collecting pebbles, minerals, animal shells, bird's eggs, plants, and insects. He also loved gardening.
Charles Darwin's father was a naturalist who studied natural history. Natural history is the scientific study of organisms by observing them in their natural habitat instead of experimenting with them. His father's interest in natural history impressed Darwin. So, he started learning the names of different plant species and, as he grew up, started reading natural history books.
When Darwin was eight years old, his mother died. When she was alive, Darwin's mother rarely took care of him, because she was often bedridden. So, his sisters took care of him most of the time. Hence, his mother's death was not a traumatizing experience for him because he did not have any great memories of her to begin with. After he became an adult, he couldn't even remember how his mother looked.
A portrait of the seven-year-old Darwin, 1816 - By Ellen Sharples - File originally uploaded to w:Wikipedia by Duncharris at 20:49, 5 May 2004., Public Domain, Link
Uninterested in studies
When he was nine years old, Darwin joined the nearby Shrewsbury boarding school, where his older brother studied.
Even after joining the school and studying different subjects, Darwin's interest in nature did not fade away. So, he started collecting insects. But one of his sisters told him that it wasn't right for him to kill insects to expand his collection. So, he started collecting only dead insects and took up bird-watching.
Darwin hated the process of memorizing by repetition, which the school used as the primary method to teach the students. Moreover, he wasn't a bright student either. Therefore, he started hating the boarding school and hence, visited his home as often as he could.
Darwin's elder brother loved chemistry. So, he set up a temporary lab at home and started experimenting. Looking at his experiments, Darwin too was drawn to chemistry, and so, joined his brother in his experiments. Even after his elder brother left school and joined college, Darwin continued to return home on weekends to experiment. Therefore, due to his passion for manufacturing gases in his amateur laboratory at home, Darwin got the nickname 'gas.'
During those days, public schools in England were mostly run by churches. So, since churches wanted to control the scientific establishment in England, teachers focussed on teaching classical studies, like history, literature, and art. These schools considered science as a dehumanizing subject. Therefore, Darwin's interest in Chemistry did not please his teachers or headmaster. Hence, he was often condemned by them.
University of Edinburgh
When he turned fifteen years old, Darwin's interest changed to bird shooting and hunting. But his interest in hunting, rather than studying, greatly annoyed his father. So, Darwin's father considered him a disgrace to the family.
Darwin's father was afraid that Darwin would amount to nothing in life. So, he sent Darwin to Edinburgh University to study medicine in 1825. Darwin's brother Erasmus also joined the university the same year. At that time, Edinburgh university was the best place in the UK to study medicine.
Life at the university turned out to be a formative experience for the aimless teenager. But not in the way that his father had expected. For Darwin, the university was not a place of study to enter a profession. Rather, it was a place where he could pursue his interests without his father's interruption.
During his time at the university, he furthered his interest and knowledge in flora and fauna, chemistry, and natural history.
First-year
During his first year at the university, Darwin attended lectures on Chemistry. He read many books on natural history, some of which he brought from home and others he borrowed from the library.
Every Sunday, he and his brother took walks along a seaport and the shores of an estuary. An estuary is a place where one or more rivers meet the sea or ocean. During these walks, Darwin observed the behaviors of birds, sea plants, and sea animals. He then recorded his observations in a diary.
Once, he even paid a black slave and learned how to stuff animals to preserve them.
Thus, Darwin spent a great deal of time in improving his knowledge in chemistry and biology. But as for the subjects that are indispensable for a medical profession, Darwin hated them. He found lectures on anatomy boring and surgeries scary.
During those days, anesthetic wasn't invented. So, patients were conscious during surgeries. Only a few people were brave enough to watch them. But Darwin wasn't one of those people. Surgeries were too brutal and so disturbing for him that he couldn't attend more than two practical classes. One of these, an operation on a child, continued to haunt him for a very long time.
Second-year
During his second year at the university, Darwin realized that he was very rich and hence, could live off his inheritance rather than toiling himself to get into a medical profession. So, he decided to improve his knowledge in fields he was interested in. Therefore, he joined a natural history course. It covered a wide range of topics, like botany, zoology, geology, and mineralogy.
Zoology particularly interested him since he learned the main classes of vertebrates and invertebrates, and the natural history of man.
Due to his interest in natural history, Darwin often visited the Royal Museum of the University, which had a huge natural history collection. He spent a lot of time there, observing the collections, studying and taking notes, learning to classify plants, and stuffing specimens.
He also joined a student club for pupils interested in natural history. At that time, Edinburgh was one of the best places in Britain to study science. So, it attracted people with radical opinions, whom Oxford and Cambridge wouldn't tolerate. Therefore, by joining a student club on natural history, Darwin met other pupils with similar interests as him as well as people with radical opinions. Pupils also presented the latest theories on transmutation, which is how evolution was known at that time. One of the students whom Darwin met in this club was John Coldstream. Coldstream and Darwin often walked along shores looking for sea animals. The duo also helped Robert Edmond Grant, who was researching simple marine lifeforms, to find evidence that one life form could mutate into another life form.
Abandoning his studies
Both Darwin and Coldstream were obsessed with Natural history. But eventually, Coldstream abandoned it and started medical practice. However, Darwin was too distressed by the sight of blood or suffering. So, he lost any ambitions of becoming a doctor. Therefore, he returned home just two years after joining the university, without finishing his studies.
Cambridge university
Darwin's father was deeply upset when he came to know that his younger son wouldn't become a physician like him. He thought that the church would be a better place for the aimless teenager. So, he sent Darwin to Christ's College of the Cambridge university to study BA. It was the first step to become a parson, a Christian person responsible for a small area.
But in Cambridge, too, Darwin preferred pursuing his hobbies rather than studying. Two of these noteworthy hobbies were horse riding and shooting. But there was one more hobby that Darwin loved more than horse riding or shooting.
Collecting beetles
When Darwin joined the Cambridge University, collecting beetles was a national craze. So, Darwin, who was already interested in observing flora and fauna, got attracted to it. Therefore, he joined his cousin William Darwin Fox who was already a skilled beetle collector, and together, they started collecting beetles. Soon, Darwin became obsessed with this hobby. One incident, in particular, shows how obsessed Darwin was with collecting beetles.
Once, when Darwin and Fox were collecting beetles, Darwin found two ground beetles. Since there were two beetles, he picked up one in each hand. Exactly at that instant, he found another rare species of beetle crawling nearby. So, desperate to catch the rare species of beetle, Darwin put one ground beetle in his mouth to free one of his hands. But the ground beetle ejected some fluid in his mouth, which burned his tongue. So, he spat the beetle out, and eventually, ended up losing all three beetles. As painful as it might seem, even this incident did not reduce Darwin's obsession for collecting more beetles than others and winning the student award.
John Stevens Henslow, Charles Darwin's mentor
Due to their shared interests, Darwin and Fox hanged out together a lot. It was Fox who introduced Darwin to Revd. John Stevens Henslow, a botany professor. Henslow was one of the professors whose courses Darwin came to love. So, he regularly attended Henslow's field trips and Botany courses conducted in botanical gardens.
But besides Botany, there weren't many other subjects that Darwin loved. He was mainly obsessed with his hobbies of beetle collecting and horse riding. But even though he was obsessed with his hobbies, he abandoned them and studied vigorously whenever exams approached. Moreover, he took private tuitions from professors whose subjects he was weak in.
Therefore, Darwin graduated with his BA degree in 1831 on time. He was ranked tenth out of 178 candidates.
Desire to travel the world
Even after his final exams were over, Darwin did not return home to visit his family. He stayed back in Cambridge for a few months due to the rules set by the university. So, to pass the time, he resumed his hobby of collecting beetles and started reading various books on theology and natural philosophy. These books taught him that nature is governed by laws, and to understand these laws, one has to observe and then theorize. He also read the personal narrative of Alexander von Humboldt, a German geographer, and explorer. Humbolt traveled the Americas extensively from 1799 to 1804 and described it from a scientific point of view. After reading these books, Charles Darwin's heart became filled with an insatiable desire to contribute to science.
So, he decided to visit the canary islands, a group of islands in the Atlantic ocean, which belong to Spain. Therefore, he started learning Spanish and Geology. However, due to various reasons, he had to postpone the trip for a year.
At the same time, heeding the suggestion of Henslow, Darwin's botany professor, the great geologist Adam Sedgwick decided to take Darwin as his assistant on a geological expedition to Wales. So, Darwin and Sedgwick set off for the expedition on August 4th, 1831. Darwin spent almost two weeks during this expedition learning to identify specimens and generalize from his observations. Then, he bid farewell to Sedgwick and met his friends, with whom he stayed for a week. Then, he returned home. Upon returning home, he found a letter from Henslow.
The second voyage of HMS Beagle
A ship called HMS Beagle had sailed across the Atlantic ocean from 1826 to 1830. During this voyage, it conducted a survey of the sea, ocean, rivers, and lakes of the islands near the southern tip of South America. In 1831, the ship's crew were preparing for the second voyage. But before setting sail, the ship's captain, Robert FitzRoy, felt that having someone who could investigate the geology of the areas would be advantageous. So, his contacts sought out Henslow for help.
At first, Henslow approached Darwin's friend. But he rejected the offer and recommended Charles Darwin instead. So, Henslow wrote to Darwin asking if he was willing to take the trip. Darwin, who was sad that he had to postpone, or even cancel the trip to the canary islands, immediately took the offer. Darwin's father, however, considered it a waste of time. But his brother-in-law eventually convinced him and so, Darwin's father agreed to support and fund Darwin's voyage.
Thus, the 22-year-old Darwin set sail on December 27th, 1831. At that time, he did not know that the voyage, which was planned to last only two years, would actually last five years. But he made good use of all the time he had.
Route of the HMS Beagle expedition (Image credits)
While the ship surveyed South America's coastline and harbors to create better maps of the region, Darwin spent most of his time on land. He visited four continents and explored regions in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and even some remote islands. During these explorations, he collected samples of plants, animals, fossils, and rocks from these regions. He also carefully noted down his observations and the theoretical speculations he derived from them. Then, at regular intervals, he packed all his specimens and his notes into crates and sent them to England. He also had a lot of time to read books and reflect on them. Thus, overall, the voyage was very beneficial to Charles Darwin. But at the same time, he also started suffering from seasickness, an illness that accompanied him throughout life.
End of the 5-year-long journey
The voyage ended in 1836. One year earlier, Henslow, Darwin's botany professor and mentor, had published Darwin's geological letters as a pamphlet. He then sent these pamphlets to select naturalists. So, by the time the 27-year-old Charles Darwin landed in Britain, he was already famous. But during those times, the British Empire encouraged natural history collections. So, British zoologists were overloaded with work. Hence, there was a risk that Darwin's collections, too, would lie in a storage somewhere for ages. But, thanks to his father's investments, Darwin was able to avoid that scenario by getting the right people to examine his collections.
Thus, even after he returned to England, Darwin's collections proved useful. His samples and notes helped experts produce groundbreaking scientific discoveries. The fossils, which he had collected, helped paleontologists and geologists understand the processes that shaped the earth's surface.
Pondering over the diversity of life
Before starting his voyage, Charles Darwin had thought that the journey will bring answers to his questions about evolution. But by the end of the trip, he had more questions than when he had begun the journey.
It all started when Charles Darwin unearthed fossils and found new animal and bird species in South America. When he unearthed these fossils, he noticed that the fossils were similar to the current inhabitants of that continent. Why were the current inhabitants of that continent more similar to the fossils and less similar to the current inhabitants of other continents? Where did the new species in the continent come from? Why was earth filled with so many varied kinds of organisms? Why were some organisms similar to other organisms but some other organisms so vastly different from others? If organisms were created to suit the environments they live in, why were the wild animals and plants in the jungles of South America, Africa, and Asia different to each other, even though the climate in these jungles were similar?
Evidence for evolution
After he returned from the voyage, Darwin gave the specimens he had collected to experts. They were able to tell him that many of his plant and animal specimens from Galapagos, the remote islands he visited, belonged to unique species found nowhere else. But even though they were unique, they resembled the species in South America, which was just 600 miles away. So, it appeared to Darwin as if some species from South America had migrated to the Galapagos and then changed there over time in isolation from the rest of the world.
While pondering over all these questions, Darwin started working on publishing the expert reports on his collections during the voyage as a multi-volume book called Zoology of the Voyage of HMS Beagle. He had obtained a grant of £1,000 for publishing his books. So, he strained himself to publish these books. As a result, he became sick. Therefore, heeding his doctor's advice, he returned to Shrewsbury to stay with his relatives.
While staying in Shrewsbury, Darwin met his cousin Emma Wedgwood, who was nine months older than him. At that time, she was caring for their sick aunt. While staying at his relatives' house, he started liking her. Back then, he might not have known that he would later marry her and have ten children with her.
But before proposing to her, his health improved. So, he returned to London to continue working. But the strain of publishing his books while trying to make progress on transmutation caught up to him. He was bedridden for several days due to stomach pain, vomiting, trembling, and severe boils. Even though he got better over time, these symptoms reoccurred throughout his life at times of stress. The cause of his sickness was never found. Moreover, any attempts at curing his sickness did not produce significant results. But aside from his occasional health problems, Darwin's work continued uninterrupted.
Forerunners to Darwin's theory of evolution
Before Darwin's time, two famous theories of transmutation existed.
Theory of Acquired Characteristics
The first theory was the theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics. According to this theory, an organism can pass on the traits it acquired during its lifetime to its offspring. This theory is also called Lamarckism because it was proposed by the French zoologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. Lamarck believed that life forms continuously transform into more complex species. According to him, living beings never die out or become extinct; they only transform into other species. And they transform to adapt to changes in the environment. When the environment changes, organisms change their behavior. These behavioral changes affect their organs, which they then pass on to their offspring.
Giraffes which have elongated necks and lengthy front legs are a perfect example of this theory. When their environment changed, the first-generation of Giraffes started stretching up to reach the leaves in the tress.
This behavior elongated their necks and legs a little. Their offspring inherited these slightly elongated necks and legs. This process continued over several generations until they became the Giraffes we see today.
On one hand, changes in the environment change the organs of organisms, making them better. On the other hand, if the change in environment makes an organ useless, it would gradually shrink over several generations until it finally disappears. Therefore, the organs which were once useful for an organism become vestigial organs for the new organism. Thus, according to Lamarck, life started out simple, from non-living things, and it continuously evolved into complex organisms, and with time, evolved into the more complex human form.
The loophole in the theory
But there was a big loophole in this theory. If evolution had really happened the way Lamarck put it, the world would only have complex organisms and no simple organisms because all the simple organisms would have transformed into complex organisms already. But in reality, simple organisms and complex organisms exist at the same time in this world.
During those days, people believed in Spontaneous generation, the hypothetical process by which living things develop from non-living things. Spontaneous generation helped them explain how maggots appeared on decaying meat, fleas appeared on dust, and how mice appeared on bread or wheat left in a corner. So, Lamarck used Spontaneous generation to explain the existence of simple and complex organisms at the same time despite simple organisms evolving into complex organisms. He proposed that while simple organisms evolve into complex organisms, more simple organisms are created from non-living things simultaneously.
Zoonomia
The other theory of transmutation that was famous at that time came from Charles Darwin's grandfather, Erasmus Darwin. Erasmus had a similar view as Lamarck. In his book called 'Zoonomia,' he explains that all animals undergo never-ending transformations, which they then pass on to their offspring. The reasons for these transformations could be many - pain, pleasure, desire, aversion, irritation, or association. Moreover, if all animals undergo perpetual transformations, then it is possible that all warm-blooded animals evolved from a single ancestor.
Charles Darwin's work on evolution
But even though these two theories supporting transmutation already existed, the conventional belief at that time was that living beings were created by God the way they were found then. They never evolved over time.
Charles Darwin was a religious man. But he was a man of science too. So, he believed that evolution happens. The only question was how it happens. So, motivated by these two theories of evolution, Charles Darwin wanted to find out how organisms transmuted into other organisms. Therefore, he met animal breeders, like farmers and pigeon breeders, numerous times to help him understand how they produced new breeds of animals.
Natural Selection
While Darwin's quest to find how evolution happens was going on, in 1838, he read Thomas Malthus' essay. In this essay, titled 'The Principle of Population,' Malthus argues that if the human population grows unchecked, it would eventually outstrip food production. If we assume that two parents have four children (which was normal at that time), and each of these four children has four children in turn, within four generations, there would be 96 human beings.
Going according to Malthus's argument, which certainly appeared realistic, each species had the potential to fill the earth in a few hundred generations. Yet, that doesn't happen. The populations of different species remain stable every year.
While pondering over this paradox, Charles Darwin came to a realization. He understood that a large percentage of individuals in every species do not survive long enough to reproduce. It dawned on him that the key to evolution lies in the same factors which decide which individuals survive to reproduce and which do not. He noticed that these factors were similar to the farmers in selective breeding who artificially select which individuals to breed. So, he named this open-ended collection of factors, which choose which individuals survive to reproduce, natural selection.
As a result of natural selection, the favorable variations within a species are passed on to subsequent generations, while the unfavorable variations are destroyed. As a result, after several generations, a new species is created. Thus, all the species we see today would have evolved from some other species in the past. But Darwin did not think all the species were completely unrelated. Instead, he considered all life to be related to each other, evolving from a single genealogical tree, branching, and re-branching.
Charles Darwin's drawing of evolution as a single tree - By Charles Darwin - Page 36 of Notebook B: [Transmutation of species (1837-1838)]. 'commenced. . . July 1837'; from Darwin Online, Public Domain, Public Domain, Link
Dormant years
Even though the idea behind natural selection had formed in Darwin's head as early as 1838, he did not publish it as a book until 1859. There were two reasons behind this. First of all, he did not want to be ostracized for mentioning that species evolved over time. His grandfather got discriminated against by society for doing the same. After all, religious people believed that God destroyed the world and created new species several times. So, telling them that species evolved over time and there weren't multiple creation events in history would be like going against their beliefs. Secondly, he wanted to substantiate his claims with more evidence. So, for the next two decades, he wrote exclusively on geology and published expert reports on his HMS Beagle collections. It became his main occupation. Whenever he had spare time, he conducted experiments by selectively breeding plants and animals.
Therefore, even after two decades of formulating the theory of Natural selection, Darwin had only written a small abstract of the big book on Natural Selection he had planned to publish. But things took a turn on June 18th, 1858, when he read an essay. This essay, 'On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely From the Original Type,' was written by Alfred Russel Wallace. Wallace was an English naturalist who was collecting specimens in South East Asia at that time.
After reading the essay, Darwin was spellbound by the similarities between his and Wallace's theories. But he did not want to create a competition. So, he decided to read out his theory as well as Wallace's theory in the most active biological society in London. But Darwin was distraught at that time because his son had died due to scarlet fever a few days before. So, Darwin couldn't go to the biological society. Moreover, Wallace couldn't be reached either. Hence, in the absence of both Darwin and Wallace, their papers were readout.
On the Origin of Species
After this incident, Charles Darwin realized that he had no time to lose. So, despite the pitiful state he was in, he started writing out a detailed abstract of his big book. After 13 months, the abstract, titled 'On the Origin of Species,' was complete. In this book, Darwin proposes that all species evolve over the course of time through the process of natural selection. He also states that all life forms evolved through a common lineage by branching and re-branching. Then, he goes on to substantiate his claims using the evidence he had collected during the HMS Beagle expedition.
Sexual Selection
But natural selection is not the only concept that Darwin focuses in his book. He also identifies one more method through which some individuals are selected for reproduction, and some are not. He names this new method Sexual selection.
Sexual selection is a method of natural selection in which members of one sex choose the members of the opposite sex to mate with. The members of the other sex, on the other hand, compete with each other to gain access to the opposite sex. Sexual selection explained why the males in some species display colorful body parts or compete with other males to attract females. The males who attract the females or defeat other males are selected by the females for breeding. Their offspring then inherit their characteristics and resemble them. Thus, able males can mate with more females and create more offspring. Hence, the next generation would have more individuals who possess the characteristics of males who succeed often, than those who succeed less often. For example, a hornless stag has a very less chance of leaving offspring when compared to other stags.
Human origins
In this book, Darwin did not explicitly state where humans originated from. He merely presented the idea that apes and human beings could have had a common ancestor. It was an idea that completely confronted the religious beliefs of people since religions believed that humans were unique and were created by God.
But despite the controversial ideas laid out in the book, the book was not so severely scrutinized. Darwin wasn't ostracized either. Indeed, exceeding Darwin's expectations, the book became hugely popular within a short time. It was translated into several languages and attracted people from all walks of life. So, in the subsequent years, Darwin published more editions of his book.
Within two decades after Darwin published the abstract, 'On the Origin of Species,' most scientists had come to accept that evolution happens. But they did not agree with Darwin that natural selection was the chief mechanism that caused it. So, Darwin spent much of his time commenting on reviews and articles, as well as responding to scientific arguments.
Other publications
The big book
Darwin had initially intended to write a big book detailing his findings and his theories about evolution. But instead, he hurriedly published 'On the Origin of Species,' an abstract of this big book, after sensing competition from another naturalist. So, once he published the abstract and the scientific community acknowledged his work on evolution, Darwin started writing the big book he had always wanted to write. In 1868, he published its first part, which he named 'The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication.' He also wanted to publish the second part of this book, but he couldn't finish it in his entire lifetime.
Charles Darwin in 1868 - By Julia Margaret Cameron - Reprinted in Charles Darwin: His Life Told in an Autobiographical Chapter, and in a Selected Series of His Published Letters, edited by Francis Darwin. London: John Murray, Albemarle Street. 1892.Scanned by User:Davepape, Public Domain, Link
Other books
Even though Darwin couldn't publish the second part of his book, he continued his experiments diligently. He also published several other books. Some of these books are noteworthy since they mentioned revolutionary ideas which we accept today as facts.
- The book 'The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex,' published in 1871, explores the idea that humans are animals too. It uses evidence from many sources and shows the continuity of attributes between animals and humans to prove the same. It also dives deeper into sexual selection.
- The book 'The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals,' published in 1872, discusses how human psychology had evolved. It then proposes that human psychology could have developed from animal behavior by listing the similarities between them.
Both these books became hugely popular. Unlike during his grandfather Erasmus' time, Darwin's revolutionary ideas did not repulse anyone. Indeed, people were able to read his books without being shocked by the idea that humans are animals too.
Honors
The Copley Medal
The scientific and religious communities may not have agreed with Darwin's ideas. Yet, it would not be an overstatement to say that Darwin's books changed the way people viewed the world and themselves. Therefore, to honor Darwin for his lifelong dedication and contribution to natural history, the Royal Society of London awarded him the Copley medal in 1864. It is Britain's highest scientific honor.
Death
In the last twenty years of his life, Darwin suffered from repeated bouts of illness. In 1882, he was diagnosed with 'Angina Pectoris,' a chest pain caused by insufficient flow of blood to the heart. As a result, he died on April 19th the same year. The president of the Royal Society honored him by burying him in Westminster Abbey close to Isaac Newton.
Facts about Charles Darwin
- Before Darwin's time, people used the word transmutation, instead of evolution.
- Darwin was not the first one to explore the idea of transmutation. Several others had already explored it before him. But Darwin was the first one to provide substantial evidence for it.
- Lamarck's idea of evolution was pretty similar to Darwin's theory. Lamarck believed that all organisms change their behavior in response to the changes in their environment. This change in behavior modifies their organs, which they then pass on to their offspring. But Darwin believed that organisms with modified organs, which provide them an advantage to survive in nature, have a better chance of producing offspring and passing it on to the next generation. For example, Lamarck believed that all giraffes stretched their necks and front legs to reach food. This elongated their necks and front legs slightly, which they then passed on to their offspring. Darwin believed that giraffes with slightly elongated necks and front legs would have a better chance of procuring food and surviving to produce offspring, which would inherit their features.
- The word evolution in the modern biological sense was first used by Sir Charles Lyell in 1832. Until then, people used the term to describe the physical movement of ships or troops. Charles Darwin used the word only once in the 'The Origin of Species' and that too in the closing paragraphs because, in the 18th century, people used the term to denote embryological development. So, he chose to use the words 'descent with modification' instead.
Proof for Darwin's work on evolution
- By the time of his death, Charles Darwin (and his colleagues) had successfully convinced many scientists that evolution was happening. But he couldn't convince people that natural selection was the primary cause of evolution. Even though it was obvious to Darwin that evolution happens due to the variations that occur in some individuals among a population, he couldn't explain to people why these variations occurred. The missing link in his argument was provided later by genetics. In the 1930s, geneticists found that the variations that Darwin mentioned happen due to the genetic changes in individuals. Thus, by the 1950s, Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection became universally accepted by biologists.
- The fossils that paleontologists discovered in the 19th and 20th centuries prove that Darwin was correct in thinking that humans and apes had a common ancestor.
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