Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin

Born 12 February 1809(1809-02-12)
Mount House, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England

Died 19 April 1882 (aged 73)
Down House, Kent, England

Residence England

Nationality British

Field Naturalist

Institutions Royal Geographical Society

Alma mater University of Edinburgh
University of Cambridge

Academic advisor Adam Sedgwick

Known for The Origin of Species
Natural selection

Notable prizes Royal Medal (1853)
Wollaston Medal (1859)
Copley Medal (1864)

Religion Church of England, though Unitarian

family background, Agnostic after 1851

History

Charles Robert Darwin (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist. After becoming eminent among scientists for his field work and inquiries into geology, he proposed and provided scientific evidence that all species of life have evolved over time from one or a few common ancestors through the process of natural selection. The fact that evolution occurs became accepted by the scientific community and the general public in his lifetime, while his theory of natural selection came to be widely seen as the primary explanation of the process of evolution in the 1930s, and now forms the basis of modern evolutionary theory. In modified form, Darwin's scientific discovery remains the foundation of biology, as it provides a unifying logical explanation for the diversity of life.

Darwin developed his interest in natural history while studying first medicine at Edinburgh University, then theology at Cambridge. His five-year voyage on the Beagle established him as a geologist whose observations and theories supported Charles Lyell's uniformitarian ideas, and publication of his journal of the voyage made him famous as a popular author. Puzzled by the geographical distribution of wildlife and fossils he collected on the voyage, Darwin investigated the transmutation of species and conceived his theory of natural selection in 1838. Having seen others attacked as heretics for such ideas, he confided only in his closest friends and continued his extensive research to meet anticipated objections. In 1858, Alfred Russel Wallace sent him an essay describing a similar theory, causing the two to publish their theories early in a joint publication.

His 1859 book On the Origin of Species established evolution by common descent as the dominant scientific explanation of diversification in nature. 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. His research on plants was published in a series of books, and in his final book, he examined earthworms and their effect on soil.

In recognition of Darwin's pre-eminence, he was buried in Westminster Abbey, close to John Herschel and Isaac Newton.

Early life

Charles Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England on 12 February 1809 at his family home, the Mount. He was the fifth of six children of wealthy society doctor and financier Robert Darwin, and Susannah Darwin (née Wedgwood). He was the grandson of Erasmus Darwin on his father's side, and of Josiah Wedgwood on his mother's side. Both families were largely Unitarian, though the Wedgwoods were adopting Anglicanism. Robert Darwin, himself quietly a freethinker, made a nod toward convention by having baby Charles baptized in the Anglican Church. Nonetheless, Charles and his siblings attended the Unitarian chapel with their mother, and in 1817, Charles joined the day school, run by its preacher. In July of that year, when Charles was eight years old, his mother died. From September 1818, he attended the nearby Anglican Shrewsbury School as a boarder.

Darwin spent the summer of 1825 helping his father treat the poor of Shropshire as an apprentice doctor. In the autumn, he went to the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, to study medicine, but he was revolted by the brutality of surgery and neglected his medical studies. He learned taxidermy from John Edmonstone, a freed black slave who told him exciting tales of the South American rainforest. Later, in The Descent of Man, he used this experience as evidence that "Negroes and Europeans" were closely related despite superficial differences in appearance.

In Darwin's second year, he joined the Plinian Society, a student group interested in natural history. He became a keen pupil of Robert Edmund Grant, a proponent of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck's theory of evolution by acquired characteristics, which Charles's grandfather Erasmus had also advocated. On the shores of the Firth of Forth, Darwin joined in Grant's investigations of the life cycle of marine animals. These studies found evidence for homology, the radical theory that all animals have similar organs which differ only in complexity, thus showing common descent. In March 1827, Darwin made a presentation to the Plinian of his own discovery that the black spores often found in oyster shells were the eggs of a skate leech. He also sat in on Robert Jameson's natural history course, learning about stratigraphic geology, receiving training in classifying plants, and assisting with work on the extensive collections of the University Museum, one of the largest museums in Europe at the time.

In 1827, his father, unhappy at his younger son's lack of progress, shrewdly enrolled him in a Bachelor of Arts course at Christ's College, Cambridge to qualify as a clergyman, expecting him to get a good income as an Anglican parson. However, Darwin preferred riding and shooting to studying. Along with his cousin William Darwin Fox, he became engrossed in the craze at the time for the competitive collecting of beetles. Fox introduced him to the Reverend John Stevens Henslow, professor of botany, for expert advice on beetles. Darwin subsequently joined Henslow's natural history course and became his favourite pupil, known to the dons as "the man who walks with Henslow". When exams drew near, Darwin focused on his studies and received private instruction from Henslow. Darwin was particularly enthusiastic about the writings of William Paley, including the argument for divine design in nature. It has been argued that Darwin's enthusiasm for Paley's religious adaptationism paradoxically played a role even later, when Darwin formulated his theory of natural selection. In his finals in January 1831, he performed well in theology and, having scraped through in classics, mathematics and physics, came tenth out of a pass list of 178.

Residential requirements kept Darwin at Cambridge until June. Following Henslow's example and advice, he was in no rush to take Holy Orders. Inspired by Alexander von Humboldt's Personal Narrative, he planned to visit the Madeira Islands with some classmates after graduation to study natural history in the tropics. To prepare himself, Darwin joined the geology course of the Reverend Adam Sedgwick and, in the summer, went with him to assist in mapping strata in Wales. After a fortnight with student friends at Barmouth, he returned home to find a letter from Henslow recommending Darwin as a suitable (if unfinished) naturalist for the unpaid position of gentleman's companion to Robert FitzRoy, the captain of HMS Beagle, which was to leave in four weeks on an expedition to chart the coastline of South America. His father objected to the planned two-year voyage, regarding it as a waste of time, but was persuaded by his brother-in-law, Josiah Wedgwood, to agree to his son's participation.

Overwork, illness, and marriage

As well as launching into this intensive study of transmutation, Darwin became mired in more work. While still rewriting his Journal, he took on editing and publishing the expert reports on his collections, and with Henslow's help obtained a Treasury grant of £1,000 to sponsor this multi-volume Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle. He agreed to unrealistic dates for this and for a book on South American Geology supporting Lyell's ideas. Darwin finished writing his Journal around 20 June 1837 just as Queen Victoria came to the throne, but then had its proofs to correct.

Darwin's health suffered from the pressure. On 20 September 1837, he had "palpitations of the heart". On doctor's advice that a month of recuperation was needed, he went to Shrewsbury then on to visit his Wedgwood relatives at Maer Hall, 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 Jos pointed out an area of ground where cinders had disappeared under loam and suggested that this might have been the work of earthworms. This inspired a talk which Darwin gave to the Geological Society on 1 November, the first demonstration of the role of earthworms in soil formation.

William Whewell pushed Darwin to take on the duties of Secretary of the Geological Society. After first declining this extra work, he accepted the post in March 1838.Despite the grind of writing and editing, remarkable progress was made on transmutation. While keeping his developing ideas secret, Darwin took every opportunity to question expert naturalists and, unconventionally, people with practical experience such as farmers and pigeon fanciers.Over time his research drew on information from his relatives and children, the family butler, neighbours, colonists and former shipmates. He included mankind in his speculations from the outset, and on seeing an ape in the zoo on 28 March 1838 noted its child-like behaviour.

The strain took its 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 when attending meetings or dealing with controversy over his theory. The cause of Darwin's illness was unknown during his lifetime, and attempts at treatment had little success. Recent attempts at diagnosis have suggested Chagas disease caught from insect bites in South America, Ménière's disease, or various psychological illnesses as possible causes, without any conclusive results.

On 23 June 1838, he took a break from the pressure of work and went "geologising" in Scotland. He visited Glen Roy in glorious weather to see the parallel "roads", horizontal ledges cut into the hillsides. He thought that these were raised beaches: they were later shown to have been shorelines of a glacial lake.

Charles chose to marry his cousin, Emma Wedgwood.

Fully recuperated, he returned to Shrewsbury in July. Used to jotting down daily notes on animal breeding, he scrawled rambling thoughts about career and prospects on two scraps of paper, one with columns headed "Marry" and "Not Marry". Advantages included "constant companion and 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, he discussed it with his father, then went to visit Emma on 29 July 1838. He did not get around to proposing, but against his father's advice he mentioned his ideas on transmutation.

Continuing his research in London, Darwin's wide reading now included "for amusement" the 6th edition of Malthus's An Essay on the Principle of Population which calculates from the birth rate that human population could double every 25 years, but in practice growth is kept in check by death, disease, wars and famine. Darwin was well prepared to see at once that this also applied to 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. This would result in the formation of new species. On 28 September 1838 he noted this insight, describing it as a kind of wedging, forcing adapted structures into gaps in the economy of nature as weaker structures were thrust out. He now had a theory by which to work, and over the following months compared farmers picking the best breeding stock to a Malthusian Nature selecting from variants thrown up by "chance" so that "every part of [every] newly acquired structure is fully practised and perfected", and thought this analogy "the most beautiful part of my theory".

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, but her upbringing as a very devout Anglican led her to express fears that his lapses of faith could endanger her hopes to meet in 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. The marriage was arranged for 24 January 1839, but the Wedgwoods set the date back. On the 24th, Darwin was honoured by being elected as Fellow of the Royal Society.

On 29 January 1839, 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.

Names: Bruna Borges, 09 3ºB

César Caressato, 23

Felipe Amorim, 28

Joice Garcia, 35

Luiza Volfa, 41