Charles Darwin

Charles Robert Darwin (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist.^[1] He was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire. He is famous for his work on the theory of evolution. His grandfather Erasmus Darwin opposed the slave trade; his father was a doctor.

Darwin's book On the Origin of Species was published in 1859. In this book, he put forward much evidence that evolution had occurred. He also proposed natural selection as the way evolution had taken place.

Darwin did not know about genetics: he never read the work of Gregor Mendel.^[2] Nevertheless, Darwin's explanation of evolution was fundamentally correct. In contrast to Lamarck, Darwin's idea was that the giraffe's neck became longer because those with longer necks survived better.^[3]p177/9 These survivors passed their genes on, and in time the whole species got longer necks.

1. ↑ "Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882)". BBC. Retrieved 2011-11-03.
2. ↑ The work of Mendel was not rediscovered until the early 20th century
3. ↑ Darwin, Charles 1884. The origin of species. 6th ed, Murray, London.