Charles R. Darwin
1809-1882
ALMA MATER
UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
The Naturalist, 1868
 Quoting Darwin
“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.”
Bio
 Residence
England
 Nationality
British
 Fields
Naturalist
 Academic advisors: Adam Sedgwick
John Stevens Henslow
 Known for
 The Voyage of the Beagle
On The Origin of Species
Natural selection
 Influences
 Charles Lyell
 Religious stance
 Church of England
 Unitarian family background
 Agnostic after 1851
 Notes
He was a grandson of Erasmus Darwin and a
grandson of Josiah Wedgwood, and married his
cousin Emma Wedgwood
 Fathered 10 Children
 2 died in infancy
 1 died at age 10
 2 sons researched and published papers with Darwin

Note
Darwin was always concerned that genetic weakness would be
expressed in his children due to marriage to his cousin.
1831
 Darwin was only 22 years old when he was invited to
accompany Captain Robert Fitzroy (only 25) on the
voyage of the Beagle.
 Darwin was highly recommended to Fitzroy by
Henslow, Darwin’s Academic Advisor at Cambridge.
 Darwin was to be the Naturalists on this voyage and
make observations and collect specimens to send
back to scientists in England for classification and
study.
Going ashore on South American Coast
Voyage of the Beagle
The Voyage took 5 years
 The Galapagos Islands were a brief anomaly near the
end of an expedition devoted to surveying the South
American Coast line. He spent only 5 weeks on the
islands.
 The observations that Darwin made on the mainland
and the islands pointed out isolation and change
within a species.
 Darwin collected fossils as well as skeletons and
skins, feathers, etc of organisms throughout the
voyage.
What did Darwin do with all those specimens?
 During the course of the voyage, Darwin was sending
back the collected specimens via ship to England to
his colleagues there for sorting and preservation for
later observations.
 Darwin spent years after his voyage organizing,
studying, analyzing, hypothesizing, discussing,
getting opinions of others …he wanted to make sure
he had necessary support for his theroy.
Malthusian Theory
Quoting Darwin
 “In October 1838, I happened to read for amusement
Malthus’ Population, and being well prepared to
appreciate the struggle for existence which
everywhere goes on from long-continued observation
of animals and plants, it at once struck me that
under these circumstances favourable variations
would tend to be preserved and unfavourable ones to
be destroyed. The result of this would be a new
species. Here then I had at last got hold of a theroy
by which to work.”
Darwin never gave Lectures.
And almost was not the first to Publish Origin through Natural
Selection
 Darwin was sick for most of his life and did only
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writing and thinking and publishing.
He authored many articles regarding the voyage
He saved the best part until last….Origin of the
Species through Natural Selection.
He almost lost out in being the first to publish this
theory.
Alfred Wallace had arrived at the same conclusions
as Darwin, but Darwin had more support data over a
longer period of time than did Wallace.
Joint Communication
 Wallace and Darwin published the first publication
of natural selection in 1859. This publication was 20
years after Darwin first drafted Origin of the Species
and sent it to other colleagues to review.
Charles Lyell
 A good friend of both Darwin and Wallace.
 Geologist and expert in the earth’s strata
 Embraced the idea of Uniformitarianism
 The idea that the earth is shaped by slow moving
forces still in operation today and acts over a very
long period of time.
This idea along with Malthusian theory supported
Darwin and Wallace’s Origin through the mechanism
of natural selection.
Darwin’s Conclusions
 The Origin of Species pointed out the basic tenets of
the evolutionary process known as natural selection.
It was noted that both animals and plants produce
more offspring that ever survive. These organisms
must struggle to survive and the survivors have some
characteristic/s that give them an advantage and
ability to cope with the conditions they encounter.
Darwin taught us how to use the Scientific Method
appropriately
 Darwin demonstrated scientific thought and process
to the public. He questioned the scientific process of
how species are related morphologically. He began
as any scientists, thorough and repeated
observations that he made about animals and plants
globally. He used facts to test out current thoughts
of the populations about species changes and made
practical and understandable explanations to
address his theory.
Last Paragraph in Origin of the Species
 “There is grandeur in this view of life, with its
several powers, having been originally breathed into
a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet
has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of
gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms
most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and
are being, evolved.”
Journal of Researches
 Darwin is Quoted
“Where on the face of the earth can we find a spot, on
which close investigation will not discover signs of
that endless cycle of change, to which this earth has
been, is, and will be subjected?”
Upon Darwin’s Death
 Grant Allen, The Academy, 1882
“At an age when many men are retiring from active
life, Charles Darwin began the busiest part of his
career. In 1859, the Origin of Species at least
appeared. It was nothing less than a revolution; it
marks the year 1 of a new era, not for science alone,
but for every department of human thought---even
of human action.”
Allen Continues…..
 “Yet this much may even now be said with certainty,
that the influence of his thought upon the thought of
the age has far outweighed any influence ever before
exerted by a single man during his own lifetime. He
has revolutionized, not biology alone, but all science;
not science alone, but all philosophy; not philosophy
alone, but human life.”
Smithsonian February 2009
 Comparing Lincoln and Darwin
Their general vision rises from the details and the
nuance, their big ideas from small sightings. They
shared logic as a form of eloquence, argument as a
style of virtue, close reasoning as a form of uplift.
 “Nothing is biology makes sense, except in the light
of evolution.”
Theodosius Dobzhansky, Geneticist, 1973
 Evolution is the thread , the common link among all
the divisions of biology.
 Nothing in the biological sciences would make sense
in the absence of our knowledge of evolution.
 Thanks to the wisdom of Charles Darwin and his
colleagues.
J. Dewey Brown, 2009
University of Richmond