Charles Darwin

This Day in History: 24 November 2019

   

160 years ago, English naturalist Charles Darwin published ‘On the Origin of Species’ which contained gripping evidence for his revolutionary theory of evolution and laid the foundation for evolutionary biology. It included detailed observations, inferences and considerations of future objections that outlined the scientific theory that species evolve over the course of generations through natural selection. Darwin included evidence that he had gathered on the Beagle expedition, sailing across the Atlantic Ocean and southern South America in the 1830s, and his other findings from research and experiments.

 

There began growing support for these ideas among the public and other anatomists, but during the first half of the 19th century, the Church of England had a large control over English science, and so they disproved of a theory that would conflict with the religious and traditional idea of humans being unique and unrelated to other animals. 

 

Later on, in history, throughout the late 19th century and the early 20th, various other evolution mechanisms were given more credit, as well as the modern evolutionary synthesis being developed in the 1930s and 1940s. This meant that Darwin's concept of evolution through natural selection became central to the modern evolutionary theory and now has become one of the most popular concepts on how life on our planet began. 

 

Want to find out more? Visit https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Darwin/On-the-Origin-of-Species for more details on what ‘On the Origin of Species’ covered.