Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin, FRS FRGS FLS FZSwas an English naturalist and geologist, best known for his contributions to the science of evolution. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors, and in a joint publication with Alfred Russel Wallace introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in...
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth12 February 1809
CityShrewsbury, England
Here, both in space and time, we seem to be brought somewhat nearer to the great fact -- the mysteries of mysteries -- the fist appearance of new beings on earth,
Till facts be grouped and called there can be no prediction. The only advantage of discovering laws is to foretell what will happen and to see the bearing of scattered facts.
Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of facts will certainly reject my theory.
I worked on true Baconian principles, and without any theory collected facts.
It occurred to me, in 1837, that something might perhaps be made of this question (the origin of the species) by patiently accumulating and reflecting on all sorts of facts which could possibly have any bearing on it
I must begin with a good body of facts and not from a principle (in which I always suspect some fallacy) and then as much deduction as you please.
It is a truly wonderful fact - the wonder of which we are apt to overlook from familiarity - that all animals and all plants throughout all time and space should be related to each other in group subordinate to group.
From my early youth I have had the strongest desire to understand or explain whatever I observed. ... To group all facts under some general laws.
For I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived. A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question.
A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question." Charles Darwin
The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology, and biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a science founded on an improved theory, is it then a science or faith?
In however complex a manner this feeling may have originated, as it is one of high importance to all those animals which aid and defend one another, it will have been increased through natural selection; for those communities, which included the greatest number of the most sympathetic members, would flourish best, and rear the greatest number of offspring.
...I have always maintained that, excepting fools, men did not differ much in intellect, only in zeal and hard work; and I still think there is an eminently important difference.
Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such fine graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory.