Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Darwin box, for Perspective Feb. 8
Charles Robert Darwin
(Feb. 12, 1809 - April, 19, 1882)
Darwin was an English naturalist who realized and demonstrated that all species evolved over time from common ancestors through the process of natural selection. Evolution became accepted as a fact by the scientific community and much of the general public in his lifetime. His theory of natural selection came to be widely seen as the primary explanation of the process of evolution in the 1930s and now forms the basis of modern evolutionary theory.
In modified form, Darwin's scientific discovery remains the foundation of biology as it provides a unifying logical explanation for the diversity of life.
At Edinburgh University, Darwin neglected medical studies to investigate marine invertebrates. Then, at the University of Cambridge, he developed a passion for natural science. His five-year voyage on HMS Beagle, from 1831 to 1836, established him as an eminent geologist and publication of his journal of the voyage made him famous as a popular author.
Darwin was fascinated by the geographical distribution of wildlife and fossils he collected on the voyage. He investigated the transmutation of species and conceived his theory of natural selection in 1838.
In 1859 book, On the Origin of Species set out evolutionary descent with modification as the dominant scientific explanation of diversification in nature. He examined human evolution and sexual selection in The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, followed by The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. His research on plants was published in a series of books, and in his final book, he examined earthworms and their effect on soil.
In recognition of Darwin's pre-eminence, he was one of only five 19th-century U.K. non-royal personages to be honoured by a state funeral and was buried in Westminster Abbey close to John Herschel, a scientist who did valuable botanical work, and the physicist Sir Isaac Newton.
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 8, 2009 b2
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