Charles Darwin
Biologist · 1809-1882 · Biology, stage 3: Meet the biologists
Established descent with modification and identified natural selection as its mechanism.
Overview
Darwin spent five years as naturalist on the Beagle, then more than twenty years assembling evidence before publishing. His argument in On the Origin of Species is cumulative rather than deductive: he begins with what breeders achieve by selecting domestic animals, establishes that variation and overproduction of offspring occur in nature, infers that nature selects too, and then spends the rest of the book showing that this one mechanism accounts for the fossil record, the geographical distribution of species, embryology, and the nested pattern of classification. He also states the objections to his own theory in a chapter of their own, which is the most useful thing in the book for a beginner. Start with the first edition of the Origin, chapters one through four; the sixth edition is more hedged because Darwin was answering critics he could not answer with the genetics he lacked.
Where to start reading
On the Origin of Species 1859
The first edition of the argument for descent with modification by natural selection, written for the general reader and assuming no mathematics.
The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex 1871
Applies the theory to humans and introduces sexual selection as a mechanism distinct from survival-based selection.
The Voyage of the Beagle 1839
The travel narrative from the survey voyage, written before Darwin had the theory; it shows the observations he later drew on.
Part of
Sources
- Charles Darwin Wikipedia
- Darwin Online Darwin OnlineEvery edition of every book Darwin published, plus manuscripts and field notebooks, free and searchable.
- Darwin Correspondence Project University of CambridgeAround fifteen thousand letters, edited and annotated; the record of how the argument was actually built.
