Darwin: The Man Who Changed the World
On February 12, 1809, a boy was born who would change the face of science, religion, and ethics around the world. His name was Charles Robert Darwin.
Darwin’s father was a doctor, and he was already forty-three by the time Charles was born at The Mount in Shrewsbury, England. Charles’ four siblings were Marianne, Caroline, Susan, and Erasmus. He was a bright but mischievous boy who made up crazy stories. Sadly, when he was only eight, his mother died, and his sisters were given charge of the household, while his father became more withdrawn than ever.
He didn’t enjoy school much, probably because he was taught the classics and did not have an appreciation for them. However, five years later, he and his brother Erasmus Darwin set up a makeshift chemistry lab in a shed, where they learned basic scientific principles of experimentation. Obviously, as seen in his later life, Darwin had a great potential for knowledge.
At sixteen, his father took him out of school and reprimanded him for his idleness. It seems Darwin was too idle and one of his few interests was actually rat-trapping! His father made him an assistant in his medical business so that the young Darwin would apply himself and be kept out of mischief. Then, his father decided that Charles should go to medical school, so that he would follow his father’s and his grandfather’s career path.
Unfortunately for Darwin’s father, the restless Charles did not take a liking to living with his brother across from the university. Apparently, not only did Darwin think medicine absurdly boring, but the sight of blood was abhorrent to him! He did, however, enjoy the chemistry lectures given there. His first year at the school was not part...
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...s bored because now he had nothing to do! His health went slowly downhill, and then he had violent seizures, chest pain, and heart problems. He died on April 29, 1882, at 4:00 pm with his family gathered around him.
It is interesting to note that, contrary to popular belief, Darwin was not buried next to Sir Isaac Newton, but was in fact entombed beside his old friend, Sir John Herschel. Newton’s tomb is about twenty feet away, and monuments for other famous men are scattered around in close proximity.
Overall, Darwin’s life was full of contradictions. He once hated geology, then loved it. He created one of the greatest tools that helps to chisel away at religion, but he himself never intended it for such use. No matter what, no one can dispute that, whether for good or for bad, in the seventy-three years he was alive, Charles Darwin truly changed our world.
Charles Robert Darwin was an English naturalist who was born in Shrewsbury, England on February 12, 1809. He was the second youngest of six children. Before Charles Darwin, there were many scientists throughout his family. His father, Dr. Robert Darwin, was a medical doctor, and his grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, was a well-known botanist. Darwin’s mother, Susannah Darwin, died when he was only eight years old. Darwin was a child that came from wealth and privilege and who loved to explore nature. In October 1825 at age sixteen, Darwin enrolled at Edinburgh University with his brother Erasmus. Two years later, Charles became a student at Christ’s College in Cambridge. His father wanted him to become a medical doctor, as he was, but since the sight of blood made Darwin nauseous, he refused. His father also proposed that he become a priest, but since Charles was far more interested in natural history, he had other ideas in mind (Dao, 2009)
Charles Darwin was an English biologist who, along with a few others, developed a biological concept that has been vulgarized and attacked from the moment his major work, The Origin of Species, was published in 1859. An accurate and brief picture of his contribution to biology is probably his own: Evolution is transmission with adaptation. Darwin saw in his epochal trip aboard the ship The Beagle in the 1830s what many others had seen but did not draw the proper conclusions. In the Galapagos Islands, off South America, Darwin noted that very large tortoises differed slightly from one island to the next. He noted also that finches also differed from one geographical location to the next. Some had shorter beaks, useful for cracking seeds. Some had long, sharp beaks, useful for prying insects out of their hiding places. Some had long tail feathers, others short ones.
minds in the field of evolution was a man named Charles Darwin. Darwin was not
Charles Darwin was born in 1809 in England, he studied medicine at Edinburgh and ministry at Cambridge. He later became interested in natural history . From 1831 to 1836 he went on a cruise around the world; this sparked an int...
Charles Robert Darwin was born on February 12, 1809 in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England. Charles was one of six children and came from a long line of scientists. His grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, created the theory of evolution and his father, Dr. Robert Waring Darwin, was a well known medical doctor in his community. When Charles was 16, in 1825, his father sent him to Edinburgh University to study medicine, in hopes that Charles would also become a medical doctor. However, three years into his studies Charles left Edinburgh University for Christ’s College because he could not tolerate the blood during surgery. It is important to note that anesthesia was not used during this time. In 1831, six years after beginning his studies, Charles graduated from Christ’s College with a Bachelors of Arts in Botany.
Charles Darwin once said, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” In PBS’s Documentary Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, this is exactly what naturalist Charles Robert Darwin thought. Charles Darwin was born February 12, 1809 in Shrewsbury, England to Dr. R. W. Darwin and Susanna Darwin, he was the second youngest of six children.
Charles Darwin is a revolutionary naturalist, his theories and discoveries of nature continue to stand two centuries later. Even as a young child, Darwin conveyed his interests in nature and later in his career, furthered his passion as a naturalist spending his earlier years gathering bulky counts of data. While studying at Cambridge University, he accepted the request to work as a naturalist on the scientific ship HMS Beagle collecting biological and geological data. On this excursion, he visited places such as the Galapagos Islands, Australia, and other South American islands to record and collect data. The data and fossils collected confirmed that complex plant life had evolved from a basis plant life. Until 1859, when he published On the
Charles Robert Darwin, the founder of evolution, was born on February 12, 1809 in rural England. Charles was the son of Robert Darwin and Susannah Wedgewood. His mother died when he was seven and his father died when Charles was thirty-nine. Until the age of eight, Charles was educated at home by his sister Caroline. Charles soon thereafter developed a fascination for biology and natural history. The young student began to hoard, collecting anything that captured his interest, from shells and rocks, to insects and birds. Darwin’s beetle collecting while at Cambridge seems to have been a little more than collecting. His collecting began to control all of his time, and eventually his thoughts. But they proved very useful once on board the Beagle. (Freeman 91) His hobbies laid the framework for a wonderful life of discovery.
On February 12, 1809, Charles Darwin was born. His childhood home took place in Shrewsbury, England. While he was a child, he took a liking to and collected shells, bird eggs, rocks and minerals, and insects. Him and his sister had gotten into multiple ‘debates’ about killing the insects, so he always had to find a corpse of an already dead insect, if he wished to collect. Later into his childhood, when he was only eight years old, his mother, Susanna, had passed away. This did not bother him as much until his later years, considering he was too young to understand what was going on. A year after that, his father, Dr. Robert Darwin, had settled young Darwin into Shrewsbury school. “ Darwin was a child of wealth and privilege who loved to explore nature.”
Charles Darwin was one of the most influential people in history. He probably never imagined that his theory of evolution and natural selection would become one of the most important scientific theories in the history of the world. He probably never imagined that it would cause so much controversy over the way human beings came into existence either.
Popularly referred to as the father of evolution, Charles Darwin was the fifth child of Robert Darwin and Susannah Wedgewood born the same year and day as Abraham Lincoln- a historical icon, February 12, 1809. He had four sisters, three older than him and one younger while his brother was older than he was and they belonged to a privileged, wealthy and well-known family. He held his father, Robert Waring Darwin, in high regard and he was a renowned physician with connections among the local gentry and new industrialists. Notably also, his grandfather- Erasmus Darwin, was a physician and poet with a liking to natural philosophy where his patients were from affluent backgrounds one of them being Josiah Wedgewood. Erasmus Darwin put forward a natural explanation for the origin and development of life where in his book Zoonomia, published in 1974, he looked into the domestication of animals, cross-fertilization of plants along with movement of climbing plants. Various works of his discussed the mechanism of inheritance and made observations on sexual selection. It is important to acknowledge the intellectual atmosphere that Charles and his father grew up in (Berra, 2009).
A lot of different concepts and perceptions have changed the ideas about technology and science in the twenty-first century. Darwin and his theory of evolution have been one of the many advances that changed science and philosophy to how many people perceive them today. Mayr and Quammen both wrote an essay portraying the importance of Darwin and his theory.
Charles Darwin began his scientific breakthroughs and upcoming theories when he began an expedition trip to the Galapagos Islands of South America. While studying there, he discovered that each island had its own type of plant and animal species. Although these plants and animals were similar in appearance, they had other characteristics that made them differ from one another and seem to not appear as similar. Darwin questioned why these plants and animals were on these islands and why they are different in ways.
The impact these men had on religious thought was tremendous. Some of them are the starting points for many of the controversies existing today. Of all the scientists, historians, and philosophers in the nineteenth century, the most influential and controversial was Charles Darwin. Born in 1809, Charles Darwin always had an interest in the nature, so he chose to study botany in college. His strengths in botany led him to become the naturalist on the H.M.S. Beagle. On a trip to South America, he and the rest of the crew visited the near by Galapagos Islands in the Pacific Ocean. It was there he noticed many different variations of the same general plants and birdshe saw previously in South America. He also observed ancient fossils of extinct organisms that closely resembled modern organisms. By 1859, all of these observations inspired him to write down his theories. He wanted to explain how evolution had occurred through a process called natural selection. In his published work, On the Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, or On the Origin of Species for short, Darwin stated that, "new species have come on the stage slowly and at successive intervals."(1) He also said, "old forms are supplanted by new and improved forms," and all organisms play a part in the "struggle for life.
Charles Darwin was a naturalist born on the 12th of February 1809 in England. Darwin grew up loving nature and went to Edinburgh University. On the trip around the world Darwin collected natural samples including birds, plants and fossils. Darwin found a particular interest in the Pacific islands and South America. When he arrived back in England he wrote up his findings as part of the Captain narrative. Darwin started working on his own theory after coming back from the trip. He observed that species had same characteristics all over the world this lead him to believe that species slowly evolved from their ancestors. In 1859 Charles Darwin published his work in his book On the Origin of Species.