Biography of Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin was born on February 12, 1809 in Shrewsbury England at about the same hour as Abraham Lincoln. He was born to a successful family, his father was a doctor and his grandfather was a famous biologist. Darwin was not a great student and he decided to become a clergy so he transferred to Cambridge University. Instead of becoming cleargy Darwin decided to study geology.

After school Darwin became naturalist on board the royal navy ship the Beagle. The Beagle left England on December 27, 1831 this was a small ship with a crew of 74, Darwin had a small laboratory and a hammock to sleep on, he suffered bad seasickness. Darwin’s job aboard the Beagle allowed him to study on many different continents. He found the remains of giant rodents and many different types of finches. Darwin was very interested with how natural events could shape the earths surface. At the time, most geologists adhered to the so-called catastrophist theory that the earth had experienced a succession of creations of animal and plant life, and that each creation had been destroyed by a sudden catastrophe, such as an upheaval or convulsion of the earths surface. According to this theory, the most recent catastrophe Noah’s flood, wiped away all life except those forms taken into the ark. The rest were visible only in the form of fossils. In the view of the catastrophists, species were individually created and immutable that is unchangeable for all time. In the Galapagos Islands, off the coast of Ecuador, he also observed that each island supported its own form of tortoise, mockingbird, and finch the various forms were closely related but differed in structure and eating habits from island to island. Both observations raised the question, for Darwin, of possible links between distinct but similar species. When Darwin returned to England he began to piece together what he learned on his voyage. This is when the theory of natural selection is born.

Darwin noticed that most species could reproduce very quickly, they could double there population but did not. He also noticed that many species had become extinct but did not know why. The reason he believed was that species adapted to better suit there surrounding, those that were better suited lived and those that were not well suited to there environment died. Darwin alleged th...

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...he only received a 100-dollar fine but the question ahead was clear. Should the law be changed to allow evolution to be taught? On January 14, 1927, the State Supreme Court in Nashville handed down a decision, which reversed the earlier one. However, the court's decision stemmed from the very point Darrow sought to avoid - a technicality.

Darwin was the start of a change in thinking, and he is the father of modern biology. He was a remarkable thinker whom without natural selection and evolution may have Darwin was elected to the prestigious Royal Society a few days before his marriage. In September 1842 he and his family moved to Down House in the English county of Kent, where he spent the rest of his life. Darwin suffered from increasing ill health over the years. Many theories have been put forth as to the nature of his illness. One that is widely held is that he suffered from Chagas' disease, a tropical ailment that affects the nervous system, as the result of a bite he got in Brazil. Other theories hold that the illness was essentially psychosomatic, with a wide range of possible causes. He died at the age of 73 at Down House on April 19, 1882.