The book begins with countless illustrations, which Darwin sketched while on tour of the world. These illustrations are periodically mentioned throughout the piece as evidence to support his theory. After the sketches, the book is divided into chapters of varying intentions. The first few chapters give brief examples and a history of the theory of evolution. His theory is not directly stated until chapter four. After this chapter, the rest of the book is comprised of subsequent chapters that give examples to prove his theory, but more importantly, he outlines all possible flaws in his theory and concisely proves their inaccuracy.
In the first chapter, “Variation under domestication”, Darwin begins setting the framework for his later theory. His main topic in this chapter is ability of humans to create variations in a species for a desired trait, such as sweetness of a fruit or the beauty of a pigeon. Everyone at that time knew that choice breeding for desired modifications were possible, but what Darwin showed was that if humans are able to change a species ever so slightly throughout such a short period of time, the possibilities of nature achieving this over millions of years is not only plausible, but inevitable. One of the other major realizations came while he was studying pigeons; Darwin, with the help of other naturalists, was able to deduce that all the different breeds of pigeons could trace their lineage back to the common rock-pigeon, at least within the confines of the United Kingdom. What this helped Darwin notice is that if all the different species on Earth were created, and they never went through the process of evolution, what was the purpose of so many different types of one bird? The pigeon alone had eight ...
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"On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life," usually shortened to "the Origin of Species," is the full title of Charles Darwin's book, first published in 1859, in which Darwin formalized what we know today as the Theory of Evolution. Although Darwin is the most famous exponent of this theory, he was by no means the first person to suspect the workings of evolution. In fact, Charles owed a considerable debt to his grandfather Erasmus, a leading scientist and intellectual, who published a paper in 1794, calledZoonomia, or, The Laws of Organic Life. This set down many of the ideas that his grandson elaborated on 70 years later.
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His theory of evolution is “Widely held notion that all life is related and has descended from a common ancestor: the birds, bananas, the fish and the flowers—all related. Darwin’s general theory presumes the development of life from non-life and stresses a purely naturalistic (undirected) descent with modification”. That is, complex creatures evolve from more simplistic ancestors, naturally over time. In a nutshell, as random genetic mutations occur within an organism’s genetic code, the beneficial mutations are preserved because they aid survival—a process known as “natural section”. These beneficial mutations are passed on to the next generation. “ Over time, beneficial mutations accumulate and the result is an entirely different organism (not just a variation of the original, but an entirely different
Chapter two consists of Darwin continuing his studies. He talks about variation in the natural world compared to the domesticated species. He defines species variation and says that every naturalist has a different idea of the definition. He explains to the reader that linking other species together by characteristics of variation is challenging because some are so similar but vary in other ways. Environmental conditions could be effecting the variation. Climate, temperature, the separation of the animals could transform them. The species changes over time and have chi...
Charles Darwin also showed how new species were created on the acts of evolution. It is easily explained by having big differences from the effect of natural selection, which were considered to be new species. So back in the beginning, before the effects of evolution had occurred there was just one specie, which evolved to make the species that we know today. So somehow all species are somewhat connected. The basis of what Darwin was proving was that life on Earth is simply the result of billions of years of adaptation to the changing environments. That is why certain species can only live in certain climates. This can be explained with the color of your skin, or the growing of plants.
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