In this little bio, Charles darwin is proved of not coming up with Evolution, but his grandfather… Evolution is a joke people!

Charles (Robert) Darwin (1809-1882)  

British naturalist, who revolutionized the science of biology by his demonstration of evolution by natural selection. Darwin’s ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES BY MEANS OF NATURAL SELECTION, OR THE PRESERVATION OF FAVORED RACES IN THE STRUGGLE OF LIFE, was published on November 24, 1859, and sold out immediately. It was followed by five more editions in his lifetime. The expression “survival of the fittest” did not originate from Darwin’s work. Herbert Spencer had already used it in his books about evolutionary philosophy. Though Darwin described our common ancestor as “a hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears,” Darwin did not do so in the famous On the Origin of Species.

“The presence of a body of well-instructed men, who have not to labor for their daily bread, is important to a degree which cannot be overestimated; as all high intellectual work is carried on by them, and on such work material progress of all kinds mainly depends, not to mention other and higher advantages.” (from The Descent of Man, 1871)
Charles Darwin was born in Shrewsbury. His grandfather Erasmus Darwin was a scientist, whose ideas on evolution anticipated later theories. His chief prose work was Zoonomia, or the Laws of Organic Life (1794-96). Darwin’s maternal grandfather was Josiah Wedgewood, the founder of the famous pottery works. Due his background, Darwin was not expected to work for a living but use his education and talents well.

Darwin’s mother died when he was eight years old, and he was brought up by his sister. In 1827 he started theology studies at Christ’s College, Cambridge. His love to collect plants, insects, and geological specimens was noted by his botany professor John Stevens Henslow. He arranged for his talented student a place a on the surveying expedition of HMS Beagle to Patagonia. Captain Robert FitzRoy needed a naturalist to serve as his companion and messmate on the tedious trip. Despite objections of his father, Darwin decided to leave his familiar surroundings. On the voyage, Darwin shared the small cabin with FitzRoy; they were constantly engaged in quarrels.

The voyage took five years from 1831 to 1836. Darwin had good reasons to doubt the view that fossils were relics of Noah’s Flood and in Cambridge he had participated in discussions about the “transmutations” of species. Darwin returned with observations he had made in Teneriffe, the Cape Verde Islands, Brazil, the Galapagos Islands, and elsewhere. He never set foot abroad again. During the voyage, he had contracted a tropical illness, which made him a semi-invalid for the rest of his life. By 1846 Darwin had published several works based on the discoveries of the voyage and he became secretary of the Geological Society (1838-41).

From 1842 Darwin lived at Down House, Downe. In 1839 he had married his cousin Emma Wedgwood, and when not devoting himself to scientific studies, he led a life of a country gentleman. He seldom left his house. Later in life he studied how earthworms improve soil fertility and structure, and the consequences of inbreeding.

In the 1840s Darwin worked on his observations of the origin of species for his own use. He began to conclude, although he was deeply anxious about the direction his mid was taking, that species might share a common ancestor. When Alfred Russel Wallace, a naturalist living in the East Indies, sent in 1858 to Darwin his study containing the main ideas of the theory of natural selection, Darwin arranged his notes, which were presented to the Linnean Society, on July 1st, 1858. They were read simultaneously with Wallace’s paper, but neither Darwin or Wallace was present on that occasion. Darwin’s youngest son had contracted scarlet fever and died; he was buried on the day of the meeting.

Wallace, who was self-taught and a highly decent man, never showed any jealousy and fiercely defended Darwin’s theory. Wallace also campaigned for women’s suffrage and land nationalization.

Darwin’s great work, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, appeared next year, and was heavily attacked because it did not support the depiction of creation given in the Bible. Before Darwin, the French anatomist and botanist Jean-Babtiste de Lamarck (1744-1829) had stressed the variations in species, and had given in his books an account of human development that was plainly evolutionary in spirit. Darwin’s argument that natural selection – the mechanism of evolution – worked automatically, leaving little or no room for divine guidance or design. All species, he reasoned, produce far too many offspring for them all to survive, and therefore those with favorable variations – owing to chance – are selected. “I am actually weary of telling people that I do not pretend to adduce [direct] evidence of one species changing into another, but I believe that this view is in the main correct, because so many phenomena can thus be grouped end explained.”

At Darwin’s hands evolution matured into a well-developed scientific theory, which have been a constant target of religious or pseudo-scientific attacks of “young-Earthers”. Especially in the United States Christian fundamentalists have enjoyed some political success, but “creation science” has never found much support in Europe among biologists. In 1996 Pope John Paul stated that evolution is a well-established fact.

Darwin himself did not at first explicitly apply the evolutionary theory to human beings. “You ask me whether I shall discuss man,” he wrote in 1857, “I think I shall avoid the whole subject, as so surrounded by prejudice.” Darwin rejected the idea of mixing religion with science and wrote to the geologist Charles Lyell (1797-1875) in 1859, “I would give absolutely nothing for the theory of Natural Selection, if it requires miraculous additions at any one stage of descent.” He also knew very well that his challenge to the Biblical doctrine would cause stress to his friends and family, among them his religious wife.

The popular view – after Darwin’s hypothesis was accepted widely – was that Man is descended from the apes which led Disraeli to say that as between Man an ape or an angel, he was “on the side of the angels.” In a letter Darwin himself expressed his own doubts about his revolutionary thinking: “Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind…?” However, T.H. Huxley did not see any reason to hesitate and published in his Man Place in Nature (1863) an application of the theory and Darwin followed him in THE DESCENT OF MAN, AND SELECTION IN RELATION TO SEX (1871) and EXPRESSION OF EMOTIONS IN MAN AND ANIMALS (1872), which sold almost 5,300 copies on its first day. This work showed the similarities between animals and man in the expression of emotions and was the start of the science of ethnology. The remainder of Darwin’s books dealt with plants. In INSECTIVOROUS PLANTS (1875) he explored how a plant – the sundew – catches, ingests, and digests flies.

Darwin’s voyage with the Royal Navy’s H.M.S. Beagle is recorded in the JOURNAL OF RESEARCHES (1836), a blend of scientific reporting and travel writing, one of the best travel books ever written. Also Alfred Wallace wrote a travel book, The Malay Archipelago. Darwin died in Down, Kent, on April 19, 1882. It it thought that Darwin suffered from Chagas’s disease, when bitten by a Benchuga bug during his scientific studies in South America. This would account for his fainting and other symptoms. It has also been argued that Darwin’s symptoms were psychosomatic. Ocasionally he took ice cold baths or used “electric chains”.

Darwin’s works have had deep a influence also outside the field of natural sciences. Applied to politics it led to the talk about “favored races” and the doctrine that nations struggle in order that the fittest shall survive. Darwin himself once said: “Believing as I do that man in the distant future will be a more perfect creature than he is now, it is an intolerable thought that he and all other sentient beings are doomed to complete annihilation after such long-continued slow progress. To those who freely admit the immortality of the human soul, the destruction of our world will not appear so dreadful.”

For further reading: Charles Darwin: A Scientific Biography by Gavin de Beer (1958); Autobiobraphy by Charles Darwin (1961); The Works of Charles Darwin: An Annotated Bibliographical Handlist by Richard B. Freeman (1977); The Vital Science: Biology and the Literary Imagination by Peter Morton (1984); Charles Darwin: The Man and His Influence by Peter J. Bowler (1990); Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist by Adrian Desmond and James Moore (1992); Darwin’s Metaphor: Nature’s Place in Victorian Culture by Robert Young (1985); Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life by Daniel C. Dennett (1995); The 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written by Martin Seymour-Smith (1998, pp. 349-351); Alfred Russel Wallace: A Life by Peter Raby (2001) – Suom.: Darwinilta on myös suomennettu muistelmateos Elämäni (1987). Pääteos, Lajien synty, ilmestyi ensimmäisen kerran A.R. Koskimiehen suomentamana vuonna 1913. – See: Friedrich Nietzsche, Jack London, H.G. Wells, Robert A. Heinlein, Ayn Rand, whose works more or less reflected Darwinist world view. Social philosopher Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) was a leading advocate of ‘Social Darwinism’. His major work, System of Synthetic Philosophy, (1862-93, 9 vol.) combined together biology and sociology. – C.S. Lewis’ Ransom trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strenght) was a fierce attack on the Social Darwinism. – See also: T.H. Huxley, who was one of the first to accept Darwin’s theory of evolution. – For further infomation: Works

Selected works:

LETTERS ON GEOLOGY, 1835
JOURNAL OF RESEARCHES, 1836
JOURNAL AND REMARKS, 1832-1836, 1839 (as Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History of the Various Countries Visited by HMS Beagle, 1839; edited by Gavin de Beer, 1959; as Diary of the Voyage of the Beagle, edited by Nora Barlow, 1933, Millicent E. Selsam, 1959, Leonard Engel, 1962, Richard Darwin Keynes, 1988, and Janet Browne and Michael Neve, 1989) – Beaglen matka: tutkimuspäiväkirja Kuninkaallisen laivaston kapteenin FitzRoyn komennossa tehdyltä HMS Beaglen maailmanympärimatkalta, jonka aikana tutustuttiin eri maiden luonnonhistoriaan ja geologiaan (suom. Pertti Ranta, 2008)
ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES BY NATURAL SELECTION, 1859; edited by J.W. Burrow, 1968 – Lajien synty luonnollisen valinnan kautta eli luonnon suosimien rotujen säilyminen taistelussa olemassaolosta (transl. by A.R. Koskimies, 1913-15) / Lajien synty (transl. by Anto Leikola, 1980; Pertti Ranta, 2009)
THE VARIATION OF ANIMALS AND PLANTS UNDER DOMESTICATION, 1868
THE DESCENT OF MAN, AND SELECTION IN RELATION TO SEX, 1871 (2 vols.)
EXPRESSION OF THE EMOTIONS IN MAN AND ANIMALS, 1872 – Tunteiden ilmeneminen ihmisessä ja eläimissä (transl. by Anto Leikola)
INSECTIVOROUS PLANTS, 1875
THE EFFECTS OF CROSS AND SELF FERTILIZATION IN THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM, (1876)
DIFFERENT FORMS OF FLOWERS IN PLANTS OF THE SAME SPECIES, 1877
THE POWER OF MOVEMENT IN PLANTS, 1880
THE FORMATION OF VEGETABLE MOULD THROUGH THE ACTION OF WORMS, 1881
AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 1887 – Elämäni (transl. by Anto Leikola, 1987)
THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES, 1909 (ed. by Francis Darwin)
WORKS, 1910 (15 vols.)
THE DARWIN READER, 1957 (ed. by Marston Bates and Philip S. Humphrey)
EVOLUTION AND NATURAL SELECTION, 1959 (ed. by Bert James Loewenberg)
DARWIN FOR TODAY, 1963 (ed. by Stanley Edgar Hyman)
WORKS, 1972 (18 vols.)
THE WORKS, 1986-89 (29 vols., ed. by Paul H. Barrett and R.B. Freeman)
THE ESSENTIAL DARWIN, 1987 (ed. by Mark Ridley)
THE PORTABLE DARWIN, 1993 (ed. by Duncan M. Porter and Petewr W. Graham)
THE CORRESPONDENCE, 1985-1994 (incomplete)

the “father” of evolution, C. Darwin was taken out of school for failing grades and was a college drop-out

 Charles Darwin. 

(1809-1882)

 

Though i did not copy and paste his whole life… I did copy and paste his life as a child who was described as selfish and self-serving, and then in school he was kicked out for bad grades, and then later on in life was became a college drop out.

Darwin’s grantfather and a man named “Grant” put the idea of evolution in his head. Darwin just made it famous by using his family’s money to publish his books he wrote about evolution.

Charles darwin is a JOKE and so is EVOlUTION. If he was kicked out of grade school and was a drop out in college, then how in heck was he a scientist??????      pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

read for your selves!,
— Joe

1809 February 12
Charles Robert Darwin was born at The Mount in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England. He was named after his uncle (Charles) who had died a few years back, and his father (Robert).

1817 Spring
Darwin attended Mr. Case’s grammar school in Shrewsbury. He was a rather shy and reserved boy who invented wild stories, and showed off his athletic skills to the other boys. He was also very mischievous, and enjoyed being the center of attention in the household.

1817 July 15
Darwin’s mother, Susannah, died when he was eight years old.

1817 August
The burial of a Dragoon soldier outside Mr. Case’s school at Saint Chad’s parish church made a lasting impression on Darwin.

1818 September
Darwin joined his brother, Erasmus, at Shrewsbury Grammar School, run by the Revd. Samuel Butler. The focus of study was Greek and Roman reading and grammar. He developed a great fondness of Shakespeare and Byron during this time. As an aside, Darwin was referred to as “Bobby” by his family during his childhood.

1822
He and his brother setup a chemistry lab in the tool shed of the garden. Darwin enjoyed chemistry a great deal and it was during this time that he learned the basic principles of scientific experimentation.

1822 October
His brother, Erasmus, left home to study medicine at Christ’s College, Cambridge University.

1825 June 17
Darwin’s father took him out of Shrewsbury school due to his poor grades and his having no direction in life. It is ironic to think that at this time his father castigated Darwin for his idleness, claiming that if he carried on this way he would end up being a disgrace to himself and his family. Apparently Darwin cared for nothing but shooting birds, playing with dogs, and catching rats!

1825 Summer
Darwin spent the summer working as an assistant in his father’s medical practice.

1825 mid-October
Eager that Darwin should not “go astray” his father decided that his son will pursue a medical career as he and his grandfather did before him. Darwin was sent to the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, known as having one of the best medical schools in all of Europe. Once there he joined his brother, Erasmus, having finished most of his medical studies at Cambridge. They took lodgings together in 11 Lothian Street, right across from the University. Darwin did not particularly take a liking to medical studies – the fear of the sight of blood being a major hindrance, but the primary reason for his aversion appears to be that he found the study of medicine incredibly boring.

1826
His first year at Edinburgh was somewhat uneventful, about the only part of medical school that sparked Darwin’s interest were the chemistry lectures given by professor Thomas Hope.

1826 February – April
John Edmonstone, a freed black slave from Guyana, South America, taught Darwin taxidermy. The two of them often sat together for conversation, and John would fill Darwin’s head with vivid pictures of the tropical rain forests of South America. These pleasant conversations with John may have later inspired Darwin to dream about exploring the tropics. In any event, the taxidermy skills Darwin learned from him were indispensable during his voyage aboard H.M.S. Beagle in 1831.

1826 Summer
Darwin finished his first year of medical school and spent the summer hiking in the Welsh hills near his home in Shrewsbury. During this time Darwin read Revd. Gilbert White’s, “The Natural History of Selborne” and he came away from this book with a much greater appreciation for wildlife. Darwin started making detailed observations of birds and kept a notebook of their habits.

1826 November 6
Darwin began his second year of medical school at Edinburgh, but now he was alone; his brother, Erasmus, having left Edinburgh for London to study anatomy. Darwin spent a lot of time at the university museum, taking notes on the plants and animals on display there. He also joined the Plinian Society during this time and often attended their scientific debates. These debates were perhaps his first exposure to anti-Christian sentiments. The topics of these debates centered upon the merits of scientific investigation stemming from a an examination of natural causes rather than divine intervention. Darwin also attended Professor Robert Jameson’s lectures on Geology, and ironically he found himself dreadfully bored with the subject, and vowed never to read or study geology again.

1827 Winter – Spring
Robert Grant, a Scottish zoologist, became a very close friend of Darwin. They would often go out on long walks together at the Firth of Forth, an estuary just north of Edinburgh, discussing marine life and collecting specimens. On these walks Grant filled Darwin’s head with evolutionary ideas, especially those of Lamarck, whom Grant admired a great deal.

1827 March 27
Darwin gave his first scientific speech at a meeting of the Plinian Society. The subject was his discovery that the larva of sea-mats can swim, and that the tiny black specks inside old oyster shells were skate leech eggs. Not the most earth shattering discovery, but it was a start for Darwin.

1827 April
Darwin quit medical school for good.

1827 May
He visited London for the first time, then went with his Uncle, Josiah Wedgwood II, for a tour of Paris.

By this time Darwin’s father was rather displeased with his son, fearing he will amount to nothing but an “idle gentleman.” Plans were made for Darwin to study for the clergy, and his father arranged for him to attend Christ’s College at Cambridge University.

1827 Summer
Darwin started to take an interest in one of his sisters best friends, Fanny Owen; daughter of William Owen of Woodhouse. They spent much time riding horses together, shooting birds, playing billiards, and engaging in mild flirtations.

1827 October
Darwin was accepted into Christ’s College at Cambridge, but did not start until winter term because he needed to catch up on some of his studies.

1827 December
Darwin began studying for the clergy at Christ’s College. His brother, Erasmus, joined him at Cambridge where he would be studying for his medical exams.

1828 Winter Term
Once again Darwin did not take his studies very seriously, spending much of his free time collecting beetles, reading Shakespeare, and having dinner parties with his friends.

1828
William Darwin Fox, Darwin’s cousin, introduced him to Revd. John Stevens Henslow, Professor of Botany at Cambridge. Darwin started attending Henslow’s lectures and was very soon addicted to natural history. By spring term Darwin saw a natural science career in his future.

1828 Summer
Darwin spent the first part of summer at home in Shrewsbury. In June he went to the Welsh coast at Cardigan Bay, taking a math tutor with him so he could bone up on algebra, a subject he found very difficult to grasp. The tutoring only lasted a few weeks, at which time Darwin got back to serious business – collected beetles and fly fishing. He also went on a reading tour at Barmouth with his Cambridge friends, John Herbert and Thomas Butler. During this tour Darwin confided with Herbert that he had serious doubts about entering the clergy. Towards the end of summer he spent some time with Fanny Owen at her father’s estate.

1828 October 31
He returned to Christ’s College, and took up residence in Revd. William Paley’s former rooms.

1828 December
During winter break Darwin visited London where his brother showed him around to the Royal Institution, Linnean Society, and Zoological Gardens. These visits further ignited Darwin’s interest in natural history. Afterwards Darwin visited Woodhouse to see his girlfriend, Fanny Owen.

1829 Early Year
Darwin began to have more doubts regarding pursuing a religious career. His studies were not going very well, and he was spending too much time out in the countryside collecting beetles.

1829 February 21
He spent part of his spring break in London where he met with the famous entomologist, Revd. Frederick Hope. They spent many days talking about insects, and Hope gave him over one-hundred new species for his collection.

1829 Summer
Darwin spent the summer at home, visiting Fanny at Woodhouse, and hunting pheasants at Maer Hall (the estate of his uncle, Josiah Wedgwood II). During this time his brother, Erasmus, decided not to pursue a medical practice and his father put him up with a generous pension.

1829 early October
Darwin attended the Birmingham Music Festival with the Wedgwood family.

1829 October 15
Now back at Cambridge, Darwin spent all of his time studying for the preliminary exams coming up in March.

1830 February
Darwin’s relationship with Fanny was beginning to diminish. The reasons for this are not entirely clear, but evidently Darwin had developed too much of a relationship with entomology (he had not visited her the previous winter break, having stayed in Cambridge to hunt beetles), and Fanny was being pursued by more attentive suitors. Just after he passed his “little go” exam they broke up.

1830 March 24
Darwin passed his “little go” exam at Cambridge. He was tested on translating Greek and Latin text (barely squeaked by), questions on the gospels (did fairly well with this), and on Paley’s Evidences of Christianity (he shined here, having a great fondness for Paley’s logic and simple elegance).

1830 Spring term
Most of the term was spent attending botany lectures from Professor Henslow. By this time Henslow had marked Darwin out as a gifted student with great promise. They often went on long walks together, discussing botany and going on plant collecting outings. Henslow also had Darwin over to his house for his Friday night dinner parties. It was during this time in his life that Darwin clearly saw his future; he would become country clergyman/naturalist like Henslow.

1830 August 11
Darwin went on holiday to Barmouth, in Wales. He spent sunny days collecting beetles, and rainy days fly fishing at the mountain lakes. When he was young Darwin was an avid hiker and during this holiday he explored the Capel Curig region and climbed Mt. Snowdon, the highest peak in Wales.

1830 September 10
Upon returning home at Shrewsbury he received a letter from Fanny that she was engaged to be married. This upset Darwin a great deal.

1830 October 7
Darwin returned to Cambridge for the fall term. He shifted his focus away from beetle collecting and exerted a huge burst of energy towards studying for his final exam. During this time Revd. Henslow became his private tutor.

1831 January 22
He took his final exam and passed with very good scores! The exam covered such topics as Homer, Virgil, Paley’s Moral and Political Philosophy (good scores here), Locke’s Essay concerning Human Understanding (did well here, too), mathematics (did not do so well), physics and astronomy (also, not very good). He came in 10th place out of 178 students who passed the exam.

1831 March/April
Darwin started thinking about settling down in a nice countryside parish as a clergyman with ample time to ramble about the countryside collecting bugs and plants. He read Paley’s “Natural Theology,” Sir John Herschel’s book, “Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy” and gained a burning zeal for science. Another book he read had a strong influence on his life; it was Alexander von Humboldt’s 7-vol. “Personal Narrative” of his South America adventures. Now Darwin began dreaming about the glorious tropical rain forests. Revd. Henslow suggested that he should go off and explore in the tropics for a short time.

1831 April
Inspired by Henslow’s advice, Darwin planned out a ocean voyage to explore Tenerife at the Canary Islands. He tried to get Revd. Henslow to go along with him but he could not go (his wife just had a baby). Darwin’s father tentatively approved the trip, wanting him to first work out the logistics and expenses.

1831 April 26
Darwin returned to Cambridge for graduation and studied for his trip. Seeing that Darwin would benefit from knowing a little something about geology, Henslow introduced him to Professor Adam Sedgwick, professor of Geology at Cambridge. Darwin was invited to attend Sedgwick’s geology lectures which oddly enough he enjoyed a great deal (this is ironic, as he found Jameson’s geology lectures at Edinburgh to be very boring).

1831 Spring
Not wanting to explore the tropics alone, Darwin convinced his friend, Marmaduke Ramsay, a tutor at Jesus College, to travel with him to the Canary Islands

1831 August 4 – 18
Darwin returned to Shrewsbury for summer vacation. Professor Sedgwick came by the house on 4 August loaded down with hiking gear and geology tools. He and Darwin went off to Northern Wales where Sedgwick gave him a crash course in field geology. Within a week Darwin was addicted to the subject. He only spent a week with Sedgwick, then went off to visit with friends at Barmouth, geologizing along the way.

1831 mid-August
Darwin’s Tenerife Island plans were crushed when found out that his friend, Ramsay, had died on 31 July. Months of preparation were wasted and Darwin was now very despondent.