Charles Darwin

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Charles Robert Darwin was born on February 12, 1809 in Shrewsbury, England and died on April 19, 1882 and is buried in Westminster Abbey. He was the fifth child and second son of Robert Waring Darwin and Susannah Wedgwood. He was the British naturalist who is known for his theories of evolution and natural selection. Darwin believed all the life on earth evolved and gradually developed over millions of years from a few common ancestors. Darwin attended Christ's College in Cambridge, where his botany teacher thought that Darwin should join an expedition with the HMS Beagle to Patagonia, where he would continue to study the different variations of plants and animals. This expedition took about 5 years starting in the year 1831 and ending around 1836, and during the five years, Darwin developed a tropical illness, which made him somewhat paralyzed and not as strong as he used to be. During the expedition, Darwin traveled a lot and found many interesting artifacts and fossils there. When he visited the Galapagos Islands he noticed how the plants and animals that lived there were variations to the plants and animals he had seen in South America. Darwin would collect samples of all the plants and compare them to other samples he had found at another place in the expedition. He used his discoveries of this expedition to publish several works, and become the secretary of the Geological Society. He married his cousin names Emma Wedgwood. When he was not busy with his work, Charles would spend his time and a country man, at home with his wife. Soon, Charles came to hypothesis that species’ might share a common ancestor. Before Darwin died, he had published and written many great works that educate many people. Darwin was known for hi theory of evolution and natural selection and was one of the most famous British Naturalist ever. (1)

Darwin’s Works

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One of Darwin’s famous works was The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. Many people criticized this work because it did not go along with the story in the book of genesis. Darwin said that natural selection worked automatically, and great design was not necessary. He thought that all species have many offspring, but only the healthy and strong ones survive, letting the weak ones die. Since all the weak ones die, only the strong ones can produce more children, making each generation stronger. This book explains Darwin’s theory on evolution and natural selection and darwins theory that all existing vegtables and animal forms were descended from earlier, more primitive forms by way of a biological evolution.(3) Darwin had many other famous books that he wrote and that were published. Most of his book talked about his theory of natural selection and evolution.(2)

"I have called this principle, by which
each slight variation, if useful, is preserved,
by the term Natural Selection."

—Charles Darwin from "The Origin of Species"(1)

Darwin's theory

Darwins theroy basically stated that the survial and extiction of a specied was determined on how well the species could adapt to thier envioremnt, and only speices that would live, would be the one that could adapt to the enviorent, making it the stronfer speicy. Darwins theory was based on the idea of natural selection which caused evolution. natural selection can be descirbed as the world of the fittest, meanin only the animals that can survive thier predators and enviorment will live. the idea of natural selction explains why evolution can take place. evoltuion is the growth and adapment of an animal to live in their enviorment. natural selection only lets the best animal in the speices survive, so the offspring will only have good traits. darwins theory was that, animals evolved because of natural selection not because of "god". since this theory went agianst what was written in the book of Genesis, it was mocked, and disagreed wiht. but soon enough, many people started to believe the idea that natural selection helped the process of evolution. (2) another threory that darwin had was the one the theory that all existing vegtables and animal forms were descended from earlier, more primitive forms by way of a biological evolution.(3)

work cited for pictures

(1)http://www.bio.miami.edu/dana/160/darwin.jpg

(2) http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0553214632.01._AA400_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

work cited for information

(1) http://www2.lucidcafe.com/lucidcafe/library/96feb/darwin.html

(2) http://www.online-literature.com/darwin/

(3) Sophies world