The Amazing Story of Charles Darwin

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The Amazing Story of Charles Darwin
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Darwins achievements

• Theory of natural selection
• Explains how evolution works.
• Changed how we perceive our place in the universe
• Darwin used detailed observation to explore much
  larger questions - helped change scientific
  methods

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Darwins challenges

• In face of violent opposition
• No knowledge of genetics or DNA
• Could not observe evolution in process

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Lifeline

• Born 1809
• A naturalist
• Collected beetles
• Studied geology
• Study at Cambridge University (1825-1831)
• Couldnt cut it in medical school so he studied
  to become a clergyman.

Darwins home at Down, near London
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Voyage of the Beagle 1831-36
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A Five Year Voyage

• Mission
• To survey and explore the coast of South America
  and the East Indies.

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Ships Naturalist

• Collect specimen
• Not-for-pay.
• His father opposed him going
• Qualification Social Status
• to keep Captain Fitzroy company

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An Amazing Journey

• Delight is a weak term to express the feeling of
  a naturalist who, for the first time, has
  wandered by himself in a Brazilian forest such a
  day brings a deeper pleasure than he can ever
  hope to experience again.

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but Challenging

• Homesick
• Seasick
• Witnessed the brutality
• bandits
• Slave trade

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Observations in South America

• Fossils were related to present-day species

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Observations inSouth America

• Massive earthquake
• Witnessed horrible devastation
• Found areas of land that had risen a few feet
• Fossils of marine animals in the Andes mountains!
• Land masses must rise in tiny increments over a
  long period of time
• Earth must be extremely old!

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Galapagos Island, 1835
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The Infernal Region

• Islands of blackened, twisted rock formations of
  volcanic eruption.

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Unique Wildlife

• Marine iquanas
• Flightless Cormorants
• Seals Penguins
• And

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Giant Tortoises!

• Lots of tortoise shells lying in the sand.
• Whaling ships would massacre animals for their
  meat

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Darwins finches

• Each island had a variation of finch
• Common characteristic
• Feather color pattern
• Difference in beak shape

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Return to England

• Studied specimen collected on the voyage
• Original finch came from mainland South
  America.
• Birds found different foods available on
  different islands.
• Only those birds with a particular beak shape
  could survive.
• Time had allowed separate species to evolve.
• Further studies (barnacles pigeons)

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Theory of Natural Selection

• Only those organisms who carried within them the
  genetic variation to enable them to survive AND
  reproduce would pass that genetic information to
  their offspring.

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Slow to publish Why so long?

• Anguish
• Like confessing a murder.
• Religous considerations
• especially worried about hurting wife Emma who
  grieved for his soul
• Illness
• In 1841 could work an hour or two a couple of
  days a week.
• Collection of a wealth of evidence

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Alfred Russell Wallace

• Thought of natural selection (1859)
• Wrote to Darwin
• Darwin had been working on book
• Published a letter jointly
• Wallace didnt
• put in the hard yards collecting and documenting
  evidence to support theory
• remain in favour of the theory
• Darwin did!

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His Book

• The Origin of Species (1859)

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