Charles Darwin was a naturalist scientist who revolutionized the world of science with his theory about the origin of species, the way in which the development of life on our planet was conceived.not only meant a scientific revolution, but also theological, for the first time in front of the Theory of Creationism appears a new Theory The Evolution.
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Childhood and Youth of Charles Darwin
February 12, 1809, He was born in Shrewsbury, England, Charles Robert Darwin , took the 5th place of 6 brothers, children of the doctor Robert Darwin and Susannah Wedwood.A family that is well-off and not only because of the father's profession, but because of his success with business.A family with a marked religious character, always struggling between maternal Anglicanism and paternal unitarianism.
With eight years Charles was already very curious and interested in the natural history, It was at this age when Charles began collecting his first copies.In 1817 his mother dies and the following year he joins his brother at the Anglican school in Shrewsbury.
He continued his studies until they were completed in 1825, a summer he would spend helping his father, as he appeared, treating the needy people in the area.After the end of the summer he would begin his studies at the University of Edinburgh, with his inseparable Erasmus brother.
It should be noted that Charles Darwin entered the university very young , with only 16 years, but initially enrolled in Medicine However, it seems that his first experiences in the operating room were not precisely enriching (he was not able to endure and had to leave both times).
Also, as his "animadversion" grew by Medicine seemed to increase his fondness for animals, plants and natural and biological issues.Medicine classes soon bored him although he showed a lot of interest in taxidermy, classes taught by John Edmonstone , a freedman who had accompanied explorer Charles Waterton through the jungle in South America.
John Edmonstone
In his second year of university, he enters the Sociedad Pliniana , formed by a group of history students in continuous debates that always drifted towards materialism in its most radical form.While Charles Darwin made different research collaborations, like the one I did with Robert Grant taking you to the Forth Fjords to study the anatomy and life cycle of marine fjord invertebrates.
But Darwin got bored with the history course Of course, the debates between Neptunism and Plutonism did not interest him in the least. He learned to classify plants and contributed to work to expand the collections of the university museum, once one of the most important in Europe.
Christ's College in Cambridge
But Darwin's disinterest in medicine was very obvious, something that didn't fit very well his father, who in disgust sent him to Christ's College in Cambridge, so that he could graduate in a career in letters, a prerequisite for ordering as pastor of the Anglican church.
Far from the paternal pretensions, to Darwin discovered in the new center, the pleasures of riding and shooting.Thanks to his cousin William Fox, he began to be interested in the collection of beetles , very fashionable in society of the moment, getting to publish some discoveries in the Manual Illustratios of British entomology by James Francis Stephens.
He began to relate to important scientific figures as the professor in Botanica, Henslow, naturalists who looked at his work with scientific eyes, like a natural theology.Darwin passed his exams, graduating with an outstanding grade.
Paley's Natural Theology
While I remained at the center and until the course was over for the rest of the students, Darwin had time to dedicate to reading, a reading that without knowing it, would exert a great influence in his way of thinking. These works would be:
- Paley's Natural Theology: A classic treatise that shows the biological adaptation of spices as irrefutable proof of a divine design.
- The preliminary discourse of the Philosophy Study Natural by John Herschel: It was a description of the ultimate goal of philosophy, the understanding of natural laws through reasoning Inductive breath based on pure observation
- Travel to the equinoctial regions of the New Continent of Humboldt.
All these stories, you induced to prepare a trip to Tenerife, with his classmates, to study the natural history in the tropics area .While preparing the trip, I study geology by Adam Sedgwick, with whom He would leave that summer to map the strata in Wales.
Robert FitzRoy
After a summer on the way home he received the news where Henslow offered him a position as a naturalist for Captain Robert FitzRoy, his position It was without retribution, something that did not matter to him since the mission was to map the coast of South America, a dream.
At the beginning this trip with an expected duration of two to We were not liked by Charles's father, he considered it a waste of time, two years without doing anything, although he finally agreed.
The journey in the Beagle by Charles Darwin
The trip began on December 27, 1831 from the port from Davenport, the name of the ship HMS Beagle. The aim of this expedition led by Captain Fitzroy, was the topographical study of the territories of the South, in Patagonia and the so-called Tierra del Fuego, following the coast of Chile, Peru and some Pacific islands, also had to make a chain of chronometric measurements (measure time) around the world.
The trip was prepared for a duration of 5 years, a trip that took Darwin to travel the entire coast of South America and be able to dedicate Last year to visit islands like Galapagos, Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia, Mauritius and the coast of South Africa.
Darwin's job was to hunt down the largest number of species, to swell the collection, but this activity that he was passionate about at first, soon stopped to interest him, there was another activity that called him more attention and was the scientific aspects of his collecting activity.
The geological study managed to turn Darwin into a true researcher, the need to reason led him to deep studies , enhanced by the reading of the first volume of Charles Lyell, on the Principles of Geology, author of the Theory of Current Causes. On the Island from Santiago, in Cape Verde, Darwin made his first geological survey on the ground and his conclusions le c they came up even more with reality in Lyell's approach.
Looking at the white rocks in Santiago , he was assailed by the idea that the origin of those white rocks could be volcanic, which, when sliding to the sea floor, could have dragged seashells and corals, forming that type of white rock.
The first letters that Darwin sent to Reverend Henslow , they impressed so much this that some of them were read to the Philosophical Society of Cambridge, where he soon raised interest, that young man and what they reported in his letters.
The consequences of this trip that ended on October 2, 1836 , were many scientific achievements obtained by Charles Darwin.
- The Theory on the Formation of Coral Reefs for their growth on the edges and top of the islands that sank slowly.
- Geological structure of Islands like Santa Elena
- Relationship between the fauna and flora of the Islands Galapago and the species of South America
- Differences between specimens of the same animal or plants collected on different islands, reasoning that cast doubt on the theory of species stability.
- Thesis of Evolution
Traveling Darwin directly observed the nature .attention to the geographical distribution of wild species and fossils that he collected during his research.Upon returning to England, he took all this as a starting point to inquire about changes in species.It was the path for the elaboration of the theory of natural selection.
It is clear that the theory of Evolution was not an isolated product of the scientific genius of Darwin .Many other naturalistic researchers contributed to its development, but without a doubt Darwin's work.The origin of the species (1859), was the book that contributed most to this great scientific advance.
Charles Darwin | Natural Selection and Evolution of Species
The theory of Darwin is known as the theory of "natural selection" .According to this theory, species of the current plants and animals descended from other species of the past.
That transformation is because the species need to adapt to the adverse conditions of the nature so as not to become extinct.To achieve this, they transform very slowly for a long time.The species that manage to transform themselves to survive are those that succeed in the evolutionary process .Darwin considered that the evolutionary process was continuous, gradual and linear.
Following this theory of evolution , human beings also had to descend from a species of the past.Darwin postulated that man had as a predecessor a similar animal to anthropoid monkeys (similar to humans).Later discoveries of hominid fossils demonstrated the validity of Darwinian theory of evolution.
Cartoon of Darwin's Hornet magazine with monkey body
Charles Darwin's Polemic Theories
It should be noted that Darwin elaborated his theory more than 150 years ago and that, therefore, what may seem normal to us today, at the time was really difficult to believe, even though Darwin expressed his hypothesis with reliable evidence.And it is that Darwin's theories not only distanced themselves from everything said so far, but they went against popular and religious beliefs based on creationism .
Other works published by Darwin were: The variation of animals and plants under the action of domestication, Human descent and natural selection and Expression of emotions in man and animals.Charles Darwin died in 1882.
It goes without saying that Darwin is currently one of the parents of biology, who opened a new hypothesis and laid the groundwork for further research.Today the theory of natural selection and the evolution of the species is fully accepted by the scientific community.
Curiosities about e Charles Darwin
One of the most characteristic features of Charles darwin was precisely the one that led him to abandon his medical studies, to which he initially wanted to devote himself to follow in his father's footsteps, and I decided to become a naturalist.And Darwin couldn't stand the vision of the blood .
Darwin was very interested in the observation and study of animals and plants, but his curiosity for them went much further, to the point that he took advantage of the smallest occasion to test them.Already during his time at Cambridge University he joined the Gourmet Club , where they tested some rare animals in the diets of a human being.During his trip to the Beagle its culinary concern increase and, in fact, the taste of some animals, such as the giant tortoise, will I am so pleased that I ordered to load 38 copies to consume on the return trip.
Charles Darwin was about not to travel in the Beagle, but this was not due to any cause of economic, political or because he did not have the knowledge needed to carry out the project.Darwin was about not to travel because of his nose .The reason is that the captain of the Beagle, Robert FitzRoy, was a big follower of the Lavater's theories , who claimed that a man could be known by the shape of his nose.Apparently, Darwin's nose was not liked by FitzRoy, and in fact the captain did not consider him at first a man with the courage and preparation necessary to face such a long journey.
Mount Darwin in Tierra del Fuego
In 1834, the day of Darwin's 25th birthday, while sailing on the Beagle, Captain Fitz Roy (who should have already forgotten the prejudices caused by that nasty nose) gave Darwin a mountain.Yes, while they were sailing through Tierra del Fuego, FitzRoy gave him the mountain , which he still has today the name of Monte Darwin and is the highest peak in Tierra del Fuego, one of the most inhospitable terrain on the planet.
Although it may sound strange, it should be noted that Darwin was a very religious person, but that various avatars of life were separating him from the faith.The definitive blow to his religious beliefs would be the death of his daughter at the age of 10 years : since then he would declare himself agnostic.When his famous work was published, was strongly criticized and vilified, especially by the British church.
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