Charles Darwin's Endless Forms Most Beautiful

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Charles Darwin conceived two great theories in his publication The Origin of Species, but many more so in his lifetime. His first great idea was not published in this novel but was developed while aboard the HMS Beagle: a theory on coral reef formations. This idea of Darwin’s was later found to be scientifically factual and only began to open his mind to many more discoveries while on this same voyage. This expedition was heavily frowned upon by his father, whom referred to the voyage as a ‘useless undertaking’; his being only 22 years of age, Darwin sought to change his father’s mind so that he could go on an adventure that would not only change the course of his life but the entirety of the future of biology. In Endless Forms Most Beautiful, Carroll states, “We are an evolved – and still evolving – species.” The progression of the study of biology would be …show more content…

Once in the Galapagos Islands, he encountered what would later be referred to as Darwin’s finches: a group of Galapagos birds that had many varieties of beak structures although appearing to be the same type of bird. Around this time, he started a collection of notebooks where he recorded his findings in secret because he feared speaking of scientific evolution would discredit everything he and his family religiously believed in. After Darwin’s five-year voyage ended, the secret notebooks were stashed away; however, he later started pigeon breeding, which led him to reflect on his findings from Galapagos. What he discovered with his pigeons at home was that he could create immensely varying types of pigeons through breeding them. These breakthroughs were also recorded and stashed away for his own pleasure and not yet prepared for sharing with the

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