Darwin, Charles Robert

Now recognized as a towering figure in the study of biology, Charles Darwin had an undistinguished academic career during his own lifetime. Though he barely scraped through his degree at Cambridge, Darwin was interested in natural history from early childhood. From 1831 to 1836, he served as naturalist on HMS Beagle, a small ship that circumnavigated the world, surveying to enhance the quality of navigational charts and gathering scientific specimens for the advancement of natural history. Darwin's account of the voyage of the Beagle was a literary success but contained little hint of the paradigm shift in biological thought for which Darwin soon became notorious. Darwin reflected for over twenty years after returning from his travels, and before publishing On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859). In this and later works, Darwin developed his theory of evolution by drawing upon his empirical observations of wildlife, fossils, and the complex relationships of localized variations in the anatomy of birds, butterflies, lizards, and other animals to their environment. Darwin's theory outraged orthodox religious beliefs in the creation (based on the myths described in Genesis that God had created the world and all that lived in it in seven days). For a time, he was reviled by a large proportion of the British establishment, but his supporters, including the eminent physician and biologist Thomas Huxley (1825–1895), encouraged him and scientific evidence eventually prevailed. Much further support for Darwin's theory of evolution is contained in his prolific writings after the Origin of Species. Evolution can no longer be described as a mere theory. There is such a huge body of hard scientific evidence, including much recently acquired support from molecular genetics, that evolution may be considered a fundamental fact of life.

JOHN M. LAST