Darwin, Charles Robert

English naturalist who developed the modern theory of evolution and proposed, with Welsh naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, the principle of natural selection. After research in South America and the Galapagos Islands as naturalist on HMS Beagle (1831–36), Darwin published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (1859). This book explained the evolutionary process through the principles of natural selection and aroused widespread argument and debate among scientists and religious leaders because it disagreed with the literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis in the Bible.

Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, the grandson of Erasmus Darwin, and studied medicine at Edinburgh and theology at Cambridge. His theory of natural selection concerned the differences existing between members of a sexually reproducing population. Those members with characteristics better fitted to the environment in which they lived would be more likely to survive and breed than other members, subsequently passing on these favourable characteristics to their young. He avoided the issue of human evolution, however, remarking at the end of The Origin of Species that ‘much light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history’. It was not until his publication of The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871), that Darwin argued that people evolved just like other living organisms. He did not seek the controversy he caused but his ideas soon caught the public imagination. The popular press soon published articles about the ‘missing link’ between humans and apes. Darwin's view was that when females or males choose to mate they are applying a form of natural selection that would result in evolution. Until fairly recently, this part of Darwin's theory was not widely supported by biologists, but now has some following.