Thursday, August 26, 2010

Charles Darwin's Life, Theory, and Impact in Society

To begin with, Charles Robert Darwin was the British father of evolutionary biology. He was born on February 12, 1809 in Shrewsbury, England. Charles Darwin was born into a wealthy family, being the fifth son. His grandparents were successful at their vocations. His grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, was a famous natural philosopher and his grandmother, Josiah Wedgwood, contributed to society with her production of pottery. 

In addition, Darwin’s education took several courses. Darwin was his father’s apprentice during his early years and subsequently, Charles decided to study medicine at Edinburgh University. However, he ostracized the monotonous readings and disregarded surgery and other medicine components. Consequently, Charles Darwin developed an interest for taxonomy, the classification of living things, and transferred to Cambridge University, but to study divinity. He then became fascinated for natural philosophy, botany, and geology. 

Likewise, Charles Darwin arrived at his theory of natural selection when he traveled in the HMS Beagle during five years. He completed numerous investigations at the Galapagos Island of natural history specimens. This was Darwin’s peak of inspiration to invent the theory of evolution and natural selection. This theory is based on organisms and their environments. Organisms reproduce and create offspring. Species often tend to produce more offspring than the environment. As a result, there is a lack of resources to nourish the animals. Darwin discovered that the animals who survived had distinct and more apt characteristics: this is known as the survival of the fittest. With this evidence, Darwin deduced that organisms had evolved to endure their environment and to increase their probabilities of survival. After twenty years of working on his theory, Charles Darwin published his book on ‘The Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection.’

As a final point, the Church had a lot of dominance and influence over society during Darwin’s time period. His theory was very contentious, and it brought a lot of cultural concerns within the moral beliefs and standards of society. The Church felt threatened by the theory of evolution given that Darwin’s theory questioned God’s existence and the way the world was created. This troubled Charles Darwin because he was afraid of neglecting established beliefs and therefore felt insecure about developing his theory. He felt even more pressured when he was notified that another scientist was developing a related theory. Charles Darwin died on April 19, 1882. Charles Darwin’s theory impacted life, science, and society in an incredible way.
Works Cited
http://ezinearticles.com/?Charles-Darwin-Facts&id=1970857
http://www.biology-online.org/2/10_natural_selection.htm

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