Charles
Darwin (1809-1882)- Darwin was one of five children of a wealthy family. He did
not like school and though his father tried placing him in a couple different
programs (clergy, doctor, etc.) he left each one, preferring partying to
studying. When he met a tutor named Henslow, a naturalist, and heard about the
topic it sparked an interest. It was Henslow who suggested that Darwin take a
“trip around the world.” This was of course the iconic Beagle voyage. He
sailed on the Beagle for 5 years, collecting plants, animals, and
fossils to study. After his journey and upon examination of the fossils he and
his colleagues found that the animals weren’t different species but perhaps
adapted ones. For example Darwin’s finches. At first he thought they were several
different types of birds but they turned out to be the same type of bird with
minor differences in their beak shapes and sizes. He was thrown into research
for many years and wrote several books. In 1838 he began to think about
marriage, he made up a pro con list about whether or not marriage was an
advantageous decision and decided it was, leading him to marry his cousin Emma
Wedgwood. Darwin loved his wife and seemed to be a true family man as much as
he could in addition to his work.
Charles
Darwin’s most influential work personally and in the history of scientific
theories is his theory based around his ideas of natural selection and sexual
selection (pg. 77 Benjamin). This theory has played roles in multiple
scientific fields that owe Darwin the credit for a lot of their advancements.
Darwin’s theory of natural selection offers an explanation as to why evolution
occurs, because at this time there was not debate that evolution was a thing in
the scientific community. Through this idea Darwin offered the significant idea
that evolution occurs over time. As a species is placed in their environmental
setting they are faced with varied other species that share similar
characteristics and differ in others. As time continues not all species are
able to continue their development and reproduction simply because the world
cannot support that immense growth of life. Here, the differences play a role
in the species ability to reproduce. For those that are able to survive and
develop enough will be faced with the opportunity to continue reproduction of
the species that survived. They will then have to opportunity to further
develop the traits that was an advantage in survival as well as develop the
characteristics that could have been potential downfalls. This is obviously a
simplified version of the theory proposed by Darwin, but still represents the
general concept of the selection theory and how through time evolution occurred
and continues to. Although Darwin’s initial idea of natural selection and
sexual selection were extremely powerful, the continuous advances made by
others also play a large role in its scientific development.
Timeline:
1859, Year "On the Origin of Species" was published
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/home-of-charles-darwin-down-house/
Work Cited
Benjamin, L. T. (2014). A brief history of modern psychology
(2nd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Desmond,
A., Moore, J., & Browne, J. (2004). Darwin, Charles Robert. Oxford
Dictonary of National Biography. Retrieved 2015.
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