Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin was a scientist and naturalist often credited as the “father” of Modern Evolutionary Theory. He lived in England in the mid-1800s, at a time when the conventions of Western Christianity were upheld by the ruling Church of England. Darwin originally planned to work in the clergy, having been raised in a religious family alongside the environment of England and growing up under the beliefs of the church. His contrasting studies on evolution came to fruition when he was appointed as a naturalist on Her Majesty’s Ship The Beagle (the HMS Beagle) from 1832 to 1836.

The HMS Beagle traveled predominantly through the Southern Hemisphere of the Earth; its time spent in the Galapagos Islands as it traveled the oceanic area was vital to Darwin’s later work. Darwin recognized that distinct species within the same geographic area—in this case, the Galapagos Islands—still shared similarities without being vastly or entirely different species. These species included the Galapagos Island mockingbirds: Nesomimus parvulus, Nesomimus trifasciatus, Nesomimus melanotis, Nesomimus macdonaldi. He also recognized that species possessed vestigal structures that went against the ideas posed by the Great Chain of Being. Darwin’s queries would predate the concept of homology, especially that of structural and developmental homologies. The HMS Beagle’s time on the Galapagos Islands provided a large substance of the observations and evidence that would make Darwin question his childhood conventions and form the theory of evolution by natural selection, which he coined “Descent with Modification”.

Upon his return, Darwin began to pen a manuscript, On the Origin of Species, based on the conclusive evidence he had found towards natural selection and inspiration from James Hutton’s principle of gradualism, Charles Lyell’s theory of uniformitarianism, and Thomas Malthus’s treatise on population dynamics. He finished his manuscript but was initially hesitant to publish it due to prior English conventions. However, when Alfred Russel Wallace approached him to review a scientific paper, Darwin found they had made similar conclusions on evolution. They agreed to jointly present their findings, an event which Darwin later followed by publishing his manuscript. Darwinism rose to prominence as the theory of evolution began to spread through scientific fields.