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99-402: The American Breeders Association held its first meeting in 1903 to discuss the “new” science of genetics that arose from Charles Darwin 's theory of evolution and Gregor Mendel 's discoveries of the laws of inheritance. The organization was established “to study the laws of breeding and to promote the improvement of plants and animals by the development of expert methods of breeding.” In 1914,

198-442: A common ancestor is now generally accepted and considered a fundamental scientific concept. In a joint publication with Alfred Russel Wallace , he introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process he called natural selection , in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding . Darwin has been described as one of

297-451: A genealogical branching of a single evolutionary tree , in which "It is absurd to talk of one animal being higher than another", thereby discarding Lamarck's idea of independent lineages progressing to higher forms. While developing this intensive study of transmutation, Darwin became mired in more work. Still rewriting his Journal , he took on editing and publishing the expert reports on his collections, and with Henslow's help obtained

396-555: A 230-page "Essay", to be expanded with his research results if he died prematurely. In November, the anonymously published sensational best-seller Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation brought wide interest in transmutation. Darwin scorned its amateurish geology and zoology, but carefully reviewed his own arguments. Controversy erupted, and it continued to sell well despite contemptuous dismissal by scientists. Darwin completed his third geological book in 1846. He now renewed

495-827: A Bachelor of Arts degree as the first step towards becoming an Anglican country parson . Darwin was unqualified for Cambridge's Tripos exams and was required instead to join the ordinary degree course. He preferred riding and shooting to studying. During the first few months of Darwin's enrolment at Christ's College, his second cousin William Darwin Fox was still studying there. Fox impressed him with his butterfly collection, introducing Darwin to entomology and influencing him to pursue beetle collecting. He did this zealously and had some of his finds published in James Francis Stephens ' Illustrations of British entomology (1829–1932). Through Fox, Darwin became

594-611: A Letter from C. DARWIN, Esq., to Prof. ASA GRAY, Boston, US, dated Down, September 5th, 1857. III. On the Tendency of Varieties to depart indefinitely from the Original Type. By ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE. The communication letter briefly describes the first two, and regarding Wallace's paper states that he sent to Darwin "with the expressed wish that it should be forwarded to Sir Charles Lyell, if Mr. Darwin thought it sufficiently novel and interesting. So highly did Mr. Darwin appreciate

693-660: A Treasury grant of £1,000 to sponsor this multi-volume Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle , a sum equivalent to about £115,000 in 2021. He stretched the funding to include his planned books on geology, and agreed to unrealistic dates with the publisher. As the Victorian era began, Darwin pressed on with writing his Journal , and in August 1837 began correcting printer's proofs . As Darwin worked under pressure, his health suffered. On 20 September, he had "an uncomfortable palpitation of

792-579: A beginning to each crop of species". Darwin's book The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs on his theory of atoll formation was published in May 1842 after more than three years of work, and he then wrote his first "pencil sketch" of his theory of natural selection. To escape the pressures of London, the family moved to rural Down House in Kent in September. On 11 January 1844, Darwin mentioned his theorising to

891-445: A better short abstract!" While Wallace had not asked for publication, Darwin would, "of course, at once write and offer to send [it] to any journal" that Wallace chose. He sadly added that "all my originality, whatever it may amount to, will be smashed". Lyell's immediate response urged Darwin to publish his own ideas, and in his reply of 25 June Darwin agreed that he could point to his own Essay of 1844 which Hooker had read in 1847, and

990-542: A book on geology. When they reached Brazil, Darwin was delighted by the tropical forest , but detested the sight of slavery there , and disputed this issue with FitzRoy. The survey continued to the south in Patagonia . They stopped at Bahía Blanca , and in cliffs near Punta Alta Darwin made a major find of fossil bones of huge extinct mammals beside modern seashells, indicating recent extinction with no signs of change in climate or catastrophe. He found bony plates like

1089-462: A book titled Natural Selection . Wallace collected specimens and corresponded with Darwin from Borneo. In December 1857, he wrote to ask if Darwin's book would delve into human origins, to which Darwin responded that "I think I shall avoid the whole subject, as so surrounded with prejudices, though I fully admit that it is the highest & most interesting problem for the naturalist". He encouraged Wallace's theorising, saying "without speculation there

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1188-709: A break and went "geologising" in Scotland. He visited Glen Roy in glorious weather to see the parallel "roads" cut into the hillsides at three heights. He later published his view that these were marine-raised beaches, but then had to accept that they were shorelines of a proglacial lake . Fully recuperated, he returned to Shrewsbury in July 1838. Used to jotting down daily notes on animal breeding, he scrawled rambling thoughts about marriage, career and prospects on two scraps of paper, one with columns headed "Marry" and "Not Marry" . Advantages under "Marry" included "constant companion and

1287-465: A calm spell. On their first stop ashore at St Jago in Cape Verde, Darwin found that a white band high in the volcanic rock cliffs included seashells. FitzRoy had given him the first volume of Charles Lyell 's Principles of Geology , which set out uniformitarian concepts of land slowly rising or falling over immense periods, and Darwin saw things Lyell's way, theorising and thinking of writing

1386-502: A clergyman to study the natural history of South America, an interest he had developed at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Cambridge . Influenced by Charles Lyell 's Principles of Geology , he became an able geologist as well as collecting plant and animal specimens, and fossils of gigantic extinct mammals. By the return journey, he was connecting patterns of geographical and historical distribution, and starting to doubt

1485-557: A close friend and follower of botany professor John Stevens Henslow . He met other leading parson-naturalists who saw scientific work as religious natural theology , becoming known to these dons as "the man who walks with Henslow". When his own exams drew near, Darwin applied himself to his studies and was delighted by the language and logic of William Paley 's Evidences of Christianity (1795). In his final examination in January 1831, Darwin did well, coming tenth out of 178 candidates for

1584-412: A copy of his journal for his family. He had some expertise in geology, beetle collecting and dissecting marine invertebrates, but in all other areas, was a novice and ably collected specimens for expert appraisal. Despite suffering badly from seasickness, Darwin wrote copious notes while on board the ship. Most of his zoology notes are about marine invertebrates, starting with plankton collected during

1683-596: A fascination and expertise in marine invertebrates, dating back to his student days with Grant, by dissecting and classifying the barnacles he had collected on the voyage, enjoying observing beautiful structures and thinking about comparisons with allied structures. In 1847, Hooker read the "Essay" and sent notes that provided Darwin with the calm critical feedback that he needed, but would not commit himself and questioned Darwin's opposition to continuing acts of creation . In an attempt to improve his chronic ill health, Darwin went in 1849 to Dr. James Gully 's Malvern spa and

1782-518: A fortnight mapping strata in Wales. After leaving Sedgwick in Wales, Darwin spent a few days with student friends at Barmouth . He returned home on 29 August to find a letter from Henslow proposing him as a suitable (if unfinished) naturalist for a self-funded supernumerary place on HMS  Beagle with captain Robert FitzRoy , a position for a gentleman rather than "a mere collector". The ship

1881-518: A freed black slave who had accompanied Charles Waterton in the South American rainforest . In Darwin's second year at the university, he joined the Plinian Society , a student natural-history group featuring lively debates in which radical democratic students with materialistic views challenged orthodox religious concepts of science. He assisted Robert Edmond Grant 's investigations of

1980-469: A friend in old age ... better than a dog anyhow", against points such as "less money for books" and "terrible loss of time". Having decided in favour of marriage, he discussed it with his father, then went to visit his cousin Emma on 29 July. At this time he did not get around to proposing, but against his father's advice, he mentioned his ideas on transmutation. He married Emma on 29 January 1839 and they were

2079-518: A giant capybara . The armour fragments were actually from Glyptodon , a huge armadillo-like creature, as Darwin had initially thought. These extinct creatures were related to living species in South America. In mid-December, Darwin took lodgings in Cambridge to arrange expert classification of his collections, and prepare his own research for publication. Questions of how to combine his diary into

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2178-556: A giant version of the armour on local armadillos . From a jaw and tooth he identified the gigantic Megatherium , then from Cuvier's description thought the armour was from this animal. The finds were shipped to England, and scientists found the fossils of great interest. In Patagonia, Darwin came to wrongly believe the territory was devoid of reptiles. On rides with gauchos into the interior to explore geology and collect more fossils, Darwin gained social, political and anthropological insights into both native and colonial people at

2277-500: A great name among the Naturalists of Europe". On 2 October 1836, Beagle anchored at Falmouth , Cornwall. Darwin promptly made the long coach journey to Shrewsbury to visit his home and see relatives. He then hurried to Cambridge to see Henslow, who advised him on finding available naturalists to catalogue Darwin's animal collections and to take on the botanical specimens. Darwin's father organised investments, enabling his son to be

2376-426: A largely overlooked passage from Wallace's essay (p.62), he says of the evolutionary principle : The action of this principle is exactly like that of the centrifugal governor of the steam engine, which checks and corrects any irregularities almost before they become evident; and in like manner no unbalanced deficiency in the animal kingdom can ever reach any conspicuous magnitude, because it would make itself felt at

2475-412: A letter to Asa Gray of 1857 showing that he was still developing the ideas, "so that I could most truly say and prove that I take nothing from Wallace. I should be extremely glad now to publish a sketch of my general views in about a dozen pages or so. But I cannot persuade myself that I can do so honourably... I would far rather burn my whole book than that he or any man should think that I had behaved in

2574-509: A minor role to natural selection, and it was not until the emergence of the modern evolutionary synthesis from the 1930s to the 1950s that a broad consensus developed in which natural selection was the basic mechanism of evolution. Darwin's scientific discovery is the unifying theory of the life sciences , explaining the diversity of life . Darwin was born in Shrewsbury , Shropshire, on 12 February 1809, at his family's home, The Mount . He

2673-430: A paltry spirit", also requesting that Hooker be invited to give a second opinion. Darwin was overwrought by a deepening crisis of illness of his baby son Charles Waring Darwin , who died of scarlet fever on 28 June. On the morning of the 29th he acknowledged Hooker's letters, writing "I cannot think now", then that night he read the letters, and though "quite prostrated", got his servant to take to Hooker Wallace's essay,

2772-532: A programmer of laws. Darwin stayed with his freethinking brother Erasmus, part of this Whig circle and a close friend of the writer Harriet Martineau , who promoted the Malthusianism that underpinned the controversial Whig Poor Law reforms to stop welfare from causing overpopulation and more poverty. As a Unitarian, she welcomed the radical implications of transmutation of species , promoted by Grant and younger surgeons influenced by Geoffroy . Transmutation

2871-587: A sand beach. He theorised that as the land rose, oceanic islands sank, and coral reefs round them grew to form atolls . On the geologically new Galápagos Islands , Darwin looked for evidence attaching wildlife to an older "centre of creation", and found mockingbirds allied to those in Chile but differing from island to island. He heard that slight variations in the shape of tortoise shells showed which island they came from, but failed to collect them, even after eating tortoises taken on board as food. In Australia,

2970-506: A self-funded gentleman scientist , and an excited Darwin went around the London institutions being fêted and seeking experts to describe the collections. British zoologists at the time had a huge backlog of work, due to natural history collecting being encouraged throughout the British Empire, and there was a danger of specimens just being left in storage. Charles Lyell eagerly met Darwin for

3069-570: A series of books, and in his final book, The Formation of Vegetable Mould, through the Actions of Worms (1881), he examined earthworms and their effect on soil. Darwin published his theory of evolution with compelling evidence in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species . By the 1870s, the scientific community and a majority of the educated public had accepted evolution as a fact . However, many initially favoured competing explanations that gave only

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3168-719: A similarity between farmers picking the best stock in selective breeding, and a Malthusian Nature selecting from chance variants so that "every part of newly acquired structure is fully practical and perfected", thinking this comparison "a beautiful part of my theory". He later called his theory natural selection , an analogy with what he termed the "artificial selection" of selective breeding. On 11 November, he returned to Maer and proposed to Emma, once more telling her his ideas. She accepted, then in exchanges of loving letters she showed how she valued his openness in sharing their differences, while expressing her strong Unitarian beliefs and concerns that his honest doubts might separate them in

3267-468: A time of revolution, and learnt that two types of rhea had separate but overlapping territories. Further south, he saw stepped plains of shingle and seashells as raised beaches at a series of elevations. He read Lyell's second volume and accepted its view of "centres of creation" of species, but his discoveries and theorising challenged Lyell's ideas of smooth continuity and of extinction of species. Three Fuegians on board, who had been seized during

3366-615: A villa in Sandown and Darwin pressed on, with the facts he felt necessary to support his "abstract" expanding far beyond the thirty pages Hooker had originally suggested. The paper, consisting of the letter and papers, was published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 3 (20 August): 46–50. The paper consisted of a communication letter by Joseph Dalton Hooker and Charles Lyell dated 30 June 1858, giving information on

3465-471: Is known as a Malthusian catastrophe . Darwin was well-prepared to compare this to Augustin de Candolle 's "warring of the species" of plants and the struggle for existence among wildlife, explaining how numbers of a species kept roughly stable. As species always breed beyond available resources, favourable variations would make organisms better at surviving and passing the variations on to their offspring, while unfavourable variations would be lost. He wrote that

3564-526: Is no good & original observation", adding that "I go much further than you". Wallace wrote his paper On The Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type at Ternate in February 1858 and sent it to Darwin with a request to send it on to Lyell. Darwin received it on 18 June 1858, and wrote to Lyell that "your words have come true with a vengeance,... forestalled" and "If Wallace had my MS. sketch written out in 1842, he could not have made

3663-467: The Linnean Society of London on 1 July 1858: On The Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type by Alfred Russel Wallace and an Extract from an unpublished Work on Species from Charles Darwin 's Essay of 1844. The article also includes an Abstract of a Letter from Darwin to Asa Gray , and an introductory letter by Joseph Dalton Hooker and Charles Lyell . The article

3762-603: The Linnean Society of London . Darwin's work established evolutionary descent with modification as the dominant scientific explanation of natural diversification. In 1871, he examined human evolution and sexual selection in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex , followed by The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872). His research on plants was published in

3861-541: The Narrative were resolved at the end of the month when FitzRoy accepted Broderip's advice to make it a separate volume, and Darwin began work on his Journal and Remarks . Darwin's first paper showed that the South American landmass was slowly rising, and with Lyell's enthusiastic backing he read it to the Geological Society of London on 4 January 1837. On the same day, he presented his mammal and bird specimens to

3960-590: The Royal Society 's Royal Medal, and it made his reputation as a biologist . Upon the conclusion of his research, Darwin declared "I hate a barnacle as no man ever did before." In 1854, he became a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London , gaining postal access to its library. He began a major reassessment of his theory of species, and in November realised that divergence in the character of descendants could be explained by them becoming adapted to "diversified places in

4059-912: The Zoological Society . The ornithologist John Gould soon announced that the Galápagos birds that Darwin had thought a mixture of blackbirds , " gros-beaks " and finches , were, in fact, twelve separate species of finches . On 17 February, Darwin was elected to the Council of the Geological Society, and Lyell's presidential address presented Owen's findings on Darwin's fossils, stressing geographical continuity of species as supporting his uniformitarian ideas. Early in March, Darwin moved to London to be near this work, joining Lyell's social circle of scientists and experts such as Charles Babbage , who described God as

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4158-516: The first Beagle voyage then given Christian education in England, were returning with a missionary. Darwin found them friendly and civilised, yet at Tierra del Fuego he met "miserable, degraded savages", as different as wild from domesticated animals. He remained convinced that, despite this diversity, all humans were interrelated with a shared origin and potential for improvement towards civilisation. Unlike his scientist friends, he now thought there

4257-509: The marsupial rat-kangaroo and the platypus seemed so unusual that Darwin thought it was almost as though two distinct Creators had been at work. He found the Aborigines "good-humoured & pleasant", their numbers depleted by European settlement. FitzRoy investigated how the atolls of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands had formed, and the survey supported Darwin's theorising. FitzRoy began writing

4356-585: The ordinary degree. Darwin had to stay at Cambridge until June 1831. He studied Paley's Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity (first published in 1802), which made an argument for divine design in nature , explaining adaptation as God acting through laws of nature . He read John Herschel 's new book, Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy (1831), which described

4455-596: The "final cause of all this wedging, must be to sort out proper structure, & adapt it to changes", so that "One may say there is a force like a hundred thousand wedges trying force into every kind of adapted structure into the gaps of in the economy of nature, or rather forming gaps by thrusting out weaker ones." This would result in the formation of new species. As he later wrote in his Autobiography : In October 1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic enquiry, I happened to read for amusement Malthus on Population, and being well prepared to appreciate

4554-631: The AGA's Journal of Heredity is devoted each year to publishing proceedings of the symposium. These special issues are available without a subscription from the AGA and Journal of Heredity websites. Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( / ˈ d ɑːr w ɪ n / DAR -win ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist , geologist , and biologist , widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology . His proposition that all species of life have descended from

4653-781: The American Breeders Association broadened its scope and became the American Genetic Association. Today, the AGA's interests encompass evolutionary diversity and genomics across taxa and subject areas, including conservation genetics, phylogenetics , phylogeography , gene function, and the genetics of domestication . In 1965 it received a bequest from Wilhelmine Key to support a lecture series which bears her name. The AGA disseminates progress in these fields through its publication, Journal of Heredity . It supports research and scholarship through sponsorship of an annual President's Symposium, special events awards,

4752-590: The Stephen J. O'Brien Award, and the Evolutionary, Ecological, or Conservation Genomics Research Awards. The AGA is a 501(c)(3) corporation. The American Genetic Association's annual conference, referred to as the President's Symposium, is organized by the AGA president for that year. In recent years, these meetings have focused on a relevant or emerging theme in non-human genetics and genomics research. A special issue of

4851-605: The Wedgwoods were adopting Anglicanism . Robert Darwin, a freethinker , had baby Charles baptised in November 1809 in the Anglican St Chad's Church, Shrewsbury , but Charles and his siblings attended the local Unitarian Church with their mother. The eight-year-old Charles already had a taste for natural history and collecting when he joined the day school run by its preacher in 1817. That July, his mother died. From September 1818, he joined his older brother Erasmus in attending

4950-453: The afterlife. While he was house-hunting in London, bouts of illness continued and Emma wrote urging him to get some rest, almost prophetically remarking "So don't be ill any more my dear Charley till I can be with you to nurse you." He found what they called "Macaw Cottage" (because of its gaudy interiors) in Gower Street , then moved his "museum" in over Christmas. On 24 January 1839, Darwin

5049-497: The anatomy and life cycle of marine invertebrates in the Firth of Forth , and on 27 March 1827 presented at the Plinian his own discovery that black spores found in oyster shells were the eggs of a skate leech . One day, Grant praised Lamarck 's evolutionary ideas . Darwin was astonished by Grant's audacity, but had recently read similar ideas in his grandfather Erasmus' journals. Darwin

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5148-434: The attention of Darwin who was then working out a strategy for presenting his theory. Darwin apparently mistook Wallace's meaning, writing "nothing very new ... Uses my simile of tree, [but] it seems all creation with him". However, he spelt out the details of Natural Selection to Lyell, who found the idea hard to accept but urged Darwin to publish to establish priority. On 14 May 1856 Darwin began what became his draft for

5247-437: The botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker , writing with melodramatic humour "it is like confessing a murder". Hooker replied, "There may, in my opinion, have been a series of productions on different spots, & also a gradual change of species. I shall be delighted to hear how you think that this change may have taken place, as no presently conceived opinions satisfy me on the subject." By July, Darwin had expanded his "sketch" into

5346-435: The contents of which we had both of us been privy to for many years. On representing this to Mr. Darwin, he gave us permission to make what use we thought proper of his memoir, &c.; and in adopting our present course, of presenting it to the Linnean Society, we have explained to him that we are not solely considering the relative claims to priority of himself and his friend, but the interests of science generally". The paper

5445-405: The department of science on which they bear". Years later, Darwin could only recall one review; Professor Haughton of Dublin claimed that "all that was new in them was false, and what was true was old." Despite illness, Darwin pressed on with writing the "abstract" of his "big book" on Natural Selection ; this condensed version was published in November 1859 as On the Origin of Species . In

5544-538: The duties of Secretary of the Geological Society. After initially declining the work, he accepted the post in March 1838. Despite the grind of writing and editing the Beagle reports, Darwin made remarkable progress on transmutation, taking every opportunity to question expert naturalists and, unconventionally, people with practical experience in selective breeding such as farmers and pigeon fanciers . Over time, his research drew on information from his relatives and children,

5643-463: The economy of nature". On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection " On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection " is the title of a journal article, comprising and resulting from the joint presentation of two scientific papers to

5742-530: The essay in 1847. After turning his attention to biology and completing eight years of work on barnacles, Darwin intensified work on his theory of species in 1854. Alfred Russel Wallace , a naturalist working in Borneo , had a paper on the "introduction" of species published in Annals and Magazine of Natural History . This made guarded comments about evolution, and in the spring of 1856 it was noticed by Lyell who drew it to

5841-713: The family butler, neighbours, colonists and former shipmates. He included mankind in his speculations from the outset, and on seeing an orangutan in the zoo on 28 March 1838 noted its childlike behaviour. The strain took a toll, and by June he was being laid up for days on end with stomach problems, headaches and heart symptoms. For the rest of his life, he was repeatedly incapacitated with episodes of stomach pains, vomiting, severe boils , palpitations, trembling and other symptoms, particularly during times of stress, such as attending meetings or making social visits. The cause of Darwin's illness remained unknown, and attempts at treatment had only ephemeral success. On 23 June, he took

5940-582: The first time on 29 October and soon introduced him to the up-and-coming anatomist Richard Owen , who had the facilities of the Royal College of Surgeons to work on the fossil bones collected by Darwin. Owen's surprising results included other gigantic extinct ground sloths as well as the Megatherium Darwin had identified, a near complete skeleton of the unknown Scelidotherium and a hippopotamus -sized rodent -like skull named Toxodon resembling

6039-651: The funeral of his son, and Wallace was still in Borneo. The meeting was chaired by the president of the society, Thomas Bell , who had written up the description of Darwin's reptile specimens from the Beagle expedition. About thirty were present, including two unnamed guests from overseas, with many there to hear an obituary notice for the former president and botanist Robert Brown given by Lyell. Wallace's natural history agent Samuel Stevens happened to be present, while Darwin's friends there included William Benjamin Carpenter and

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6138-467: The geologist William Henry Fitton . Amongst the others, Daniel Oliver and Arthur Henfry would later support evolution, while Cuthbert Collingwood became an opponent. George Bentham was persuaded by Hooker to step down so that the Darwin and Wallace papers were first on the agenda, followed by six other papers on botanical and zoological topics. Bell had introduced discussions at the end of meetings, but there

6237-575: The heart", so his doctors urged him to "knock off all work" and live in the country for a few weeks. After visiting Shrewsbury, he joined his Wedgwood relatives at Maer Hall , Staffordshire, but found them too eager for tales of his travels to give him much rest. His charming, intelligent, and cultured cousin Emma Wedgwood , nine months older than Darwin, was nursing his invalid aunt. His uncle Josiah pointed out an area of ground where cinders had disappeared under loam and suggested that this might have been

6336-472: The highest aim of natural philosophy as understanding such laws through inductive reasoning based on observation, and Alexander von Humboldt 's Personal Narrative of scientific travels in 1799–1804. Inspired with "a burning zeal" to contribute, Darwin planned to visit Tenerife with some classmates after graduation to study natural history in the tropics. In preparation, he joined Adam Sedgwick 's geology course, then on 4 August travelled with him to spend

6435-602: The interests of science that a selection from them should be laid before the Linnean Society. Taken in the order of their dates, they consist of:— I. Extract from an unpublished Work on Species, by C. DARWIN, Esq., consisting of a portion of a Chapter entitled, "On the Variation of Organic Beings in a state of Nature; on the Natural Means of Selection; on the Comparison of Domestic Races and true Species." II. Abstract of

6534-493: The letter to Asa Gray and the Essay of 1844, leaving matters in the hands of Lyell and Hooker. Lyell and Hooker had decided on a joint publication at the Linnean Society of London of Wallace's paper together with an extract from Darwin's essay and his letter to Asa Gray . The last meeting of the society before the summer recess had been postponed following the death of former president the botanist Robert Brown on 10 June 1858, and

6633-472: The most influential figures in human history and was honoured by burial in Westminster Abbey . Darwin's early interest in nature led him to neglect his medical education at the University of Edinburgh ; instead, he helped to investigate marine invertebrates . His studies at the University of Cambridge 's Christ's College from 1828 to 1831 encouraged his passion for natural science . However, it

6732-498: The nearby Anglican Shrewsbury School as a boarder . Darwin spent the summer of 1825 as an apprentice doctor, helping his father treat the poor of Shropshire, before going to the well-regarded University of Edinburgh Medical School with his brother Erasmus in October 1825. Darwin found lectures dull and surgery distressing, so he neglected his studies. He learned taxidermy in around 40 daily hour-long sessions from John Edmonstone ,

6831-433: The official Narrative of the Beagle voyages, and after reading Darwin's diary, he proposed incorporating it into the account. Darwin's Journal was eventually rewritten as a separate third volume, on geology and natural history. In Cape Town , South Africa, Darwin and FitzRoy met John Herschel, who had recently written to Lyell praising his uniformitarianism as opening bold speculation on "that mystery of mysteries,

6930-511: The old school to enter the lists before armouring." Although Bell apparently disapproved, the Vice-President promptly removed all references to immutability from his own paper which was awaiting publication. Darwin wrote to Wallace to explain what had occurred, enclosing a letter which Hooker wrote at Darwin's request. His next action was to get his family away from the danger of infection, both himself and Emma exhausted by sickening fear about

7029-483: The origin of species". Without telling Darwin, extracts from his letters to Henslow had been read to scientific societies, printed as a pamphlet for private distribution among members of the Cambridge Philosophical Society , and reported in magazines, including The Athenaeum . Darwin first heard of this at Cape Town, and at Ascension Island read of Sedgwick's prediction that Darwin "will have

7128-517: The parents of ten children, seven of whom survived to adulthood. Continuing his research in London, Darwin's wide reading now included the sixth edition of Malthus 's An Essay on the Principle of Population . On 28 September 1838, he noted its assertion that human "population, when unchecked, goes on doubling itself every twenty-five years, or increases in a geometrical ratio", a geometric progression so that population soon exceeds food supply in what

7227-568: The possibility that "one species does change into another" to explain the geographical distribution of living species such as the rheas, and extinct ones such as the strange extinct mammal Macrauchenia , which resembled a giant guanaco , a llama relative. Around mid-July, he recorded in his "B" notebook his thoughts on lifespan and variation across generations – explaining the variations he had observed in Galápagos tortoises , mockingbirds, and rheas. He sketched branching descent, and then

7326-512: The replacement of extinct species by others" as "a natural in contradistinction to a miraculous process". When organising his notes as the ship sailed home, Darwin wrote that, if his growing suspicions about the mockingbirds, the tortoises and the Falkland Islands fox were correct, "such facts undermine the stability of Species", then cautiously added "would" before "undermine". He later wrote that such facts "seemed to me to throw some light on

7425-608: The safety of their children. The day after the funeral they moved to his sister-in-law's in Sussex , then on to Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight . At first they stayed in the King's Hotel, Shanklin , and on 30 July Darwin began writing an "abstract" of his book on Natural Selection , planning a short paper in response to Hooker's urging to publish a scientific paper in the Linnean journal. They next rented

7524-455: The same very ingenious theory to account for the appearance and perpetuation of varieties and of specific forms on our planet, and both fairly claim the merit of being original thinkers in this important line of inquiry; but neither of them having published his views, though Mr. Darwin has for many years past been repeatedly urged by us to do so, and both authors having now unreservedly placed their papers in our hands, we think it would best promote

7623-417: The stability of Species. In September 1838 he conceived his theory of natural selection as the cause of evolution , then as well as developing his career as a geologist and writer worked privately on finding evidence and answering possible objections. He wrote out his ideas in an 1842 "pencil sketch", then in an essay written in 1844. He discussed transmutation with his friend Joseph Dalton Hooker , who read

7722-408: The struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of the habits 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 the formation of new species. Here, then, I had at last got a theory by which to work... By mid-December, Darwin saw

7821-409: The systematics of the taxa. He wrote his first examination of the species in 1846, but did not formally describe it until 1854. FitzRoy's long delayed Narrative was published in May 1839. Darwin's Journal and Remarks got good reviews as the third volume, and on 15 August it was published on its own. Early in 1842, Darwin wrote about his ideas to Charles Lyell, who noted that his ally "denies seeing

7920-620: The three sections of the papers. The introduction is shown below, along with the section headings: MY DEAR SIR,—The accompanying papers, which we have the honour of communicating to the Linnean Society, and which all related to the same subject, viz. the Laws which affect the Production of Varieties, Races, and Species, contain the results of the investigations of two indefatigable naturalists, Mr. Charles Darwin and Mr. Alfred Wallace. The gentlemen having, independently and unknown to one another, conceived

8019-548: The value of the views therein set forth, that he proposed, in a letter to Sir Charles Lyell, to obtain Mr. Wallace's consent to allow the Essay to be published as soon as possible. Of this step we highly approved, provided Mr. Darwin did not withhold from the public, as he was strongly inclined to do (in favour of Mr. Wallace), the memoir which he had himself written on the same subject, and which, as before stated, one of us had perused in 1844, and

8118-451: The very first step, by rendering existence difficult and extinction almost sure soon to follow. The cybernetician and anthropologist Gregory Bateson would observe in the 1970s that, although seeing it only as an illustration, Wallace had "probably said the most powerful thing that’d been said in the 19th century". Bateson revisited the topic in his 1979 book Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity , and other scholars have continued to explore

8217-420: The voyage began on 27 December 1831; it lasted almost five years. As FitzRoy had intended, Darwin spent most of that time on land investigating geology and making natural history collections, while HMS Beagle surveyed and charted coasts. He kept careful notes of his observations and theoretical speculations, and at intervals during the voyage his specimens were sent to Cambridge together with letters including

8316-421: The voyage, Darwin began detailed investigations and, in 1838, devised his theory of natural selection. Although he discussed his ideas with several naturalists, he needed time for extensive research, and his geological work had priority. He was writing up his theory in 1858 when Alfred Russel Wallace sent him an essay that described the same idea, prompting the immediate joint submission of both their theories to

8415-403: The work of earthworms , inspiring "a new & important theory" on their role in soil formation , which Darwin presented at the Geological Society on 1 November 1837. His Journal was printed and ready for publication by the end of February 1838, as was the first volume of the Narrative , but FitzRoy was still working hard to finish his own volume. William Whewell pushed Darwin to take on

8514-694: Was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). On 29 January, Darwin and Emma Wedgwood were married at Maer in an Anglican ceremony arranged to suit the Unitarians, then immediately caught the train to London and their new home. Darwin now had the framework of his theory of natural selection "by which to work", as his "prime hobby". His research included extensive experimental selective breeding of plants and animals, finding evidence that species were not fixed and investigating many detailed ideas to refine and substantiate his theory. For fifteen years this work

8613-418: Was a " wren " was in the finch group . Darwin had not labelled the finches by island, but from the notes of others on the ship, including FitzRoy, he allocated species to islands. The two rheas were distinct species, and on 14 March Darwin announced how their distribution changed going southwards. By mid-March 1837, barely six months after his return to England, Darwin was speculating in his Red Notebook on

8712-465: Was anathema to Anglicans defending social order, but reputable scientists openly discussed the subject, and there was wide interest in John Herschel's letter praising Lyell's approach as a way to find a natural cause of the origin of new species. Gould met Darwin and told him that the Galápagos mockingbirds from different islands were separate species, not just varieties, and what Darwin had thought

8811-418: Was his five-year voyage on HMS  Beagle from 1831 to 1836 that truly established Darwin as an eminent geologist. The observations and theories he developed during his voyage supported Charles Lyell 's concept of gradual geological change . Publication of his journal of the voyage made Darwin famous as a popular author. Puzzled by the geographical distribution of wildlife and fossils he collected on

8910-425: Was in the background to his main occupation of writing on geology and publishing expert reports on the Beagle collections, in particular, the barnacles . The impetus of Darwin's barnacle research came from a collection of a barnacle colony from Chile in 1835, which he dubbed Mr. Arthrobalanus . His confusion over the relationship of this species ( Cryptophialus minutus ) to other barnacles caused him to fixate on

9009-487: Was no discussion of natural selection, perhaps because of the amount of business that had been dealt with, or possibly due to polite reluctance to speak out against a theory which the eminent Lyell and Hooker were supporting. Bentham noted that the audience appeared fatigued. Hooker later said there was "no semblance of a discussion", though "it was talked over with bated breath" at tea afterwards, and in his reminiscences many years later thought "the subject [was] too ominous for

9108-500: Was no unbridgeable gap between humans and animals. A year on, the mission had been abandoned. The Fuegian they had named Jemmy Button lived like the other natives, had a wife, and had no wish to return to England. Darwin experienced an earthquake in Chile in 1835 and saw signs that the land had just been raised, including mussel -beds stranded above high tide. High in the Andes he saw seashells, and several fossil trees that had grown on

9207-565: Was rather bored by Robert Jameson 's natural-history course, which covered geology – including the debate between neptunism and plutonism . He learned the classification of plants and assisted with work on the collections of the University Museum , one of the largest museums in Europe at the time. Darwin's neglect of medical studies annoyed his father, who sent him to Christ's College, Cambridge , in January 1828, to study for

9306-476: Was reprinted and reviewed in several magazines including The Zoologist , whose judgement was "on asking myself, 'What does all this prove?' the only answer I could make was, 'A possibility'." It was commented on in some reviews and letters. The Linnean Society President Thomas Bell in his presidential report of May 1859 wrote that "The year which has passed has not, indeed, been marked by any of those striking discoveries which at once revolutionize, so to speak,

9405-574: Was surprised to find some benefit from hydrotherapy . Then, in 1851, his treasured daughter Annie fell ill, reawakening his fears that his illness might be hereditary. She died the same year after a long series of crises. In eight years of work on barnacles, Darwin's theory helped him to find " homologies " showing that slightly changed body parts served different functions to meet new conditions, and in some genera he found minute males parasitic on hermaphrodites , showing an intermediate stage in evolution of distinct sexes . In 1853, it earned him

9504-482: Was the fifth of six children of wealthy society doctor and financier Robert Darwin and Susannah Darwin (née Wedgwood). His grandfathers Erasmus Darwin and Josiah Wedgwood were both prominent abolitionists . Erasmus Darwin had praised general concepts of evolution and common descent in his Zoonomia (1794), a poetic fantasy of gradual creation including undeveloped ideas anticipating concepts his grandson expanded. Both families were largely Unitarian , though

9603-499: Was the first announcement of the Darwin–Wallace theory of evolution by natural selection ; and appeared in print on 20 August 1858. The presentation of the papers spurred Darwin to write a condensed "abstract" of his "big book", Natural Selection . This was published in November 1859 as On the Origin of Species . On the voyage of the Beagle the young Charles Darwin took a break between graduating and starting his career as

9702-479: Was to be held on 1 July. On the afternoon of 30 June Mrs. Hooker copied out extracts from the handwritten documents they had just received from Darwin, then that evening Lyell and Hooker handed them in to the secretary with a covering letter. The papers were read to the Linnean Society of London on 1 July 1858, by the Secretary John Joseph Bennett . Neither author was present. Darwin was attending

9801-446: Was to leave in four weeks on an expedition to chart the coastline of South America. Robert Darwin objected to his son's planned two-year voyage, regarding it as a waste of time, but was persuaded by his brother-in-law, Josiah Wedgwood II , to agree to (and fund) his son's participation. Darwin took care to remain in a private capacity to retain control over his collection, intending it for a major scientific institution. After delays,

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