Charles Robert Darwin (1809–1882)

Famous British biologist and naturalist; founder of the theory of evolution.

Darwin was born on 12 February 1809, in the small English town of Shrewsbury, Shropshire, where his grandfather and father were both wealthy local doctors. In 1825 Darwin entered the University of Edinburgh to study medicine, but he had no intention to study medicine, instead he went out into the field to collect specimens of various plants and animals and developed a keen interest in natural history. 1828 Darwin moved to Cambridge University to study theology instead, but he had no interest in theology either, but was fascinated by museum studies. During his time at Cambridge, Darwin met J. Henslow, a leading botanist of the time, and the famous geologist Sedgwick, and received scientific training in the study of botany and geology.

After graduating from Cambridge, Darwin took part in a five-year (1831–1836) expedition around the world on the British naval ship HMS Beagle in December 1831 as a “naturalist”. He first visited Brazil and Argentina on the east coast of South America and the west coast and adjacent islands, then crossed the Pacific Ocean to Oceania, then the Indian Ocean to South Africa, before returning to Brazil via the Atlantic Ocean around the Cape of Good Hope and finally returning to Britain in October 1836. This voyage changed Darwin’s beliefs. Prior to the voyage Darwin still held in the immutability of species, but during the trip he observed a large number of species, particularly the birds and turtles of the Galápagos Islands in South America, which impressed Darwin and caused him to question the idea that God created all things. On his return to England, Darwin continued to ponder the origins of living species, while taking part in experimental breeding of plants and animals. In 1838, he happened to read the English vulgar economist Malthus’s An Essay on the Principle of Population, which inspired him to develop his ideas on the creation and formation of species: the multiplicity of organisms gives rise to competition and struggle for survival between organisms, and natural selection discards disadvantageous variations and retains advantageous ones. The competition and struggle for survival between organisms, the elimination of disadvantageous variations and the preservation of advantageous variations through natural selection, led to the formation of new species.

In 1859 Darwin published On the Origin of Species, a masterpiece that established the theory of biological evolution with natural selection at its core, destroying creationism and the theory of the immutability of species and putting biology on a scientific footing. Darwin then spent the next 20 years collecting information to flesh out and enrich his theory of the evolution of species by natural selection and to explain the consequences and implications of evolution by natural selection. The theory of evolution greatly liberated people’s minds, inspiring and educating them from the shackles of religious superstition. Darwin was also the author of several books, including The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication (1868), The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871) and The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872). These works had an important influence on the development of anthropology, psychology and philosophy. As one of the three major discoveries of natural science in the mid-19th century, Darwin’s theory of biological evolution and the doctrine of the cell, and the law of conservation and transformation of energy, laid the foundations of natural science for the creation of Marxist dialectical and historical materialism. In 1859, Darwin published The Origin of Species, which created the theory of biological evolution with natural selection as its core, destroyed the idea of creationism by God and the theory of species, and with his efforts biology branch attained a scientific character.

Darwin died on 19 April 1882 at the age of 73 after a long illness. His body was buried next to Newton’s tomb as a tribute to the famous biologist.