Educated and wealthy family- much like many of you.
Father wanted him to become a doctor
Education
Went to University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Hated it
Transferred to Cambridge to study divinity and eventually become a clergyman.
Loved natural history
Collected beetles
Hunted animals
Voyage of the H.M.S. Beagle
In 1831 he was offered the position of naturalist aboard the H.M.S. Beagle
His father said “No.”
Darwin got his uncle to convince his father to let him go.
Thank goodness for Darwin’s uncle!
Five year journey around the world.
Most of the time was spent along the coast of South America
Two Important Events Happened to Charles
First, he read Charles Lyell’s book, “The Principles of Geology”
It explained that the geological forces at work today are the same forces that have shaped our earth in the past.
Therefore, the geological features we see today, like mountains, canyons, etc. are the result of slow processes that have been working for a very long time.
This caused Darwin to entertain the idea that the earth is much older than the commonly held date of 4004 B.C. calculated by Bishop Usher.
Second, he visited the Galapagos Islands
Located 600 miles off the coast of South America
Darwin observed that each island had a different species of tortoise and finch.
The finches, though each was different, bore a similarity to finches Darwin had observed on the west coast of South America and were unlike the finches of Europe.
The best explanation of this observation was that an original pair had arrived at the Galapagos from the mainland and evolved into different species.
Remember, the prevailing view was that species were created once and never changed.
At this point Darwin was probably an evolutionist- or he was becoming an evolutionist. But he had no explanation as to how species had evolved.
Darwin’s Breakthrough
Darwin arrived home in the fall of 1836- over the next two years several things occurred.
Darwin decided to marry Emma Wedgewood
His first cousin
Assured him financial freedom
Eventually moved to a beautiful home about 16 miles southeast of London in the village of Down
He read an important book
“Essay on the Principle of Population” by Reverend Thomas Malthus
Malthus argued that human population grows faster than the ability to produce food and that at some point population would outstrip the food supply.
This idea is what led Darwin to come up with the concept of Natural Selection.
Darwin calculated if a single breeding pair of elephants lived and reproduced six offspring, and if all these offspring lived and reproduced the normal number of offspring over a normal life span, then in 750 years there would be 19 million elephants on earth!
There are nowhere near this many elephants on earth. In fact, the elephant population, in general, stays relatively constant year to year.
Darwin realized that this was because of what he called “natural selection.”
Darwin’s Delay
Darwin didn’t publish his results immediately!
In 1844 he wrote out a sketch of his ideas and told his wife to publish it in case he died:
“As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in a manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principles of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form."
Why the Delay?
Darwin became an evolutionist during his voyage on the Beagle, or soon after arriving home in England.
In 1838, after reading Malthus, he discovered a mechanism for evolution: natural selection.
He didn’t publish his findings until 20 years later, in 1858. Why?
Probably because he was afraid of the public’s rejection of it’s revolutionary implications- that it challenged the current understanding at the time, that a creator created all species in 4004 B.C. and that species were fixed and unchanging.
Darwin spent 20 years working to gain evidence to support his theory.
He worked at his home- Down House.
Spent 8 years writing a four volume work on Barnacles!
Hammack at Downe House Video
Eight years were spent writing a four volume treatise on the classification of barnacles
Almost Scooped!
Finally Darwin began to slowly write out his theory in full- a project that would have taken him many years to complete. But in June of 1858 he received a letter from Alfred Wallace an English naturalist who was half way around the world in Indonesia (known then as the Malay Archipelago).
The letter contained Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection!!
Wallace stumbled on the mechanism of evolution during a fit of malaria.
Interestingly, he also attributes his insight due to a reading of Thomas Malthus’ book!
Dual Reading
In order to be fair to both men their separate papers were read together at the Linnean Society’s July meeting in London in 1858.
Quickly Darwin rushed to publish a book describing the theory in detail.
His book, “On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life” was published in November 1859.
The End
Darwin’s theory came under attack by the church
He convinced the scientific community of evolution, but, surprisingly, not natural selection!
He died on April 12, 1882 and was buried in Westminster Abbey near another famous English scientist, Isaac Newton
