biography and his theory of evolution

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Charles Darwin biography

In 1809, when Lamarck’s Philosophy of Zoology was published, a man was born in the English city of Shrewsbury who was destined to revolutionize natural history. His name was Charles Robert Darwin. The English name Charles can be transmitted into Russian with a soft sign – Charles.

In the first 20 years of his life, he was no different from his peers, except for his love for long lonely walks and hunting. At the insistence of his father, the young man began to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh, but soon left his studies.

And after a while, he began to prepare for the career of a pastor. Apparently, there was something in the future naturalist of genius. For famous university professors willingly made friends with him. And his comrades, watching how enthusiastically he was collecting a collection of beetles, predicted a great future for him.

Darwin never became a pastor. But he continued his studies at Christ College, Cambridge University.

Darwin’s World Tour

One of his educated friends informed Charles that Captain Fitz Roy agreed to give up part of his own cabin to a young man who would go free in the Beagle as a naturalist. It is said that a five-year voyage around the world in the Beagle ship helped Darwin become the creator of evolutionary theory.

However, everything went to ensure that this did not happen. At first, the father was categorically opposed. Then the captain wondered if the guy had enough energy and determination.

And finally, when the ship had already sailed, Charles fell out with the hot-tempered and domineering Fitz Roy, with whom he had to share a cabin. Nevertheless, the journey took place. Carrying out a number of important orders from the British Admiralty, the Beagle and her crew were absent for exactly five years.

And all these years, detailed letters-reports and the richest collections of mountain minerals, paleontological finds and zoological rarities were sent to England, to scientific friends.

It was they who helped the “Beagle” “float” into history and gain the glory that ships rarely get. But the new theory was not born immediately. It took the scientist more than twenty years of hard work before the book “The Origin of Species by Natural Selection, or Preservation of Chosen Breeds in the Struggle for Life” was published.

They were helped by “love for science, boundless patience with long pondering of any subject, hard work in observing and collecting facts,” as the author himself modestly writes. It also took the genius of this man, who, like no one else, knew how to generalize and systematize facts, to understand the most complex interrelationships of living beings.

Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution

The idea of ​​evolution, variability of living things is as old as the world. Some ancient philosophers could not be surprised even by the descent of man from ape. They guessed about it.

Aristotle knew about the “ladder of beings”, and Francis Bacon spoke about evolution in the XNUMXth century. The evolutionary theory of Jean Baptiste Lamarck was notable for its completeness. But all evolutionists before Darwin could not find direct evidence of organisms changing over time. Most importantly, they did not understand its reasons.

The slender building of the living world was essentially erected, but it threatened to collapse – there was no cement that would unite its individual blocks into one whole. It was not for nothing that Lamarck had to endow living organisms with an “initial striving for perfection”.

There was nothing else he could explain the expediency of living beings and the harmony of the organic world.

Darwin writes Autobiography, but he hardly dwells on the external facts of his life. Perfectly understanding the size of his contribution to science, he seeks to find out why it was he who had the incredible success of creating the theory of evolution. And with amazing modesty he examines his own character, mentality, and even habits.

Struggle for existence

“It is surprising,” writes the author, “that with the moderate ability that I possess, I could significantly influence the beliefs of people of science on some important issues.”

But is the methodicality alone, which he repeatedly emphasized, enough for the ingeniously simple comparisons he made? Who among the naturalists did not know that every living organism is capable of multiplying exponentially. Despite this, the number of adults remains almost constant.

In fish, for example, from hundreds of thousands of eggs, only two to three dozen adults are formed. Only one egg out of ten “works” in birds, nine chicks die in the first year of life. Domestic and caring mammals hardly keep a third of their offspring, sometimes half.

“All the victims,” ​​says Darwin, “are victims of the struggle for existence.” The body does not live on its own, in isolation. He has to provide himself with food, and it is not at all easy to dine: all around is full of extra mouths, if you gape, you will remain hungry.

If you are a herbivore, be careful not to be eaten. The predator is also not sweet – no hare will voluntarily sacrifice itself to maintain the fox family. And here severe frosts or droughts in summer may strike. Not everyone can withstand such conditions.

And one more circumstance attracted the attention of the naturalist. It has long been known that even in the offspring of the same parents, there are no two identical individuals. Thanks to these differences, people have been able to create magnificent breeds of livestock and cultivars.

But this could happen only on condition that small differences are inherited from generation to generation, that they accumulate, gradually changing the appearance of the whole organism.

Two conclusions

Thousands of years of experience in breeding and numerous paleontological data confirm this. So, there are two conclusions:

1. The inevitable death of most of the offspring in the struggle for the right to live
2. The heterogeneity of this offspring, the inconstancy of its qualities.

Who will be the first to die in the fight against nature and competitors? Naturally, Darwin concludes, the one who is worse is weaker.

If a deer is born with shorter legs, it has a much higher chance of falling prey to a wolf. This means that short-leggedness, which could become a distinctive feature of a new species of deer: (this is an inherited trait), cannot be fixed in the offspring.

Lamarck also tried to explain the quick legs of the deer. But what organ did the turtle train to acquire the shell? How did the rose leaf “exercise” before it became a thorn? Where did the molluscs get their shells from?

No one before Darwin was able to give a reasonable answer to these questions. But natural selection, the predominant survival of those plants or animals that have randomly generated beneficial changes, immediately explained everything.

Natural selection

And instead of a frozen, albeit harmonious, picture of the living world, another one appeared before the eyes of mankind – a fierce struggle of “everyone against everyone,” a genuine, albeit wavering, eternally elusive balance, the true independence of living nature. Without any “vitality”, “organizing principle” and “striving for perfection.”

Darwin used an unusual method to construct a new theory. He did not go from the particular to the general. He deduced the law of nature not by revealing it in one case and confirming it in many others, but vice versa.

The scientist did not try to reveal the reason for evolution. He began by discovering the means that man used to achieve his goal – to change and improve animals and plants.

The breeder chose two or three ears out of a thousand, or one goby out of a hundred. It was they who possessed the qualities he needed. And who could do such a purposeful work in nature?

The scientist completely rejected any outside interference. He understood perfectly well that all sorts of “reasonable forces” and “striving for perfection” are just an escape from the answer. He was probably close to the idea of ​​self-regulation of wildlife.

For what is natural selection and the struggle for existence if not the complex processes that regulate the number of organisms, their relationship with each other and with the conditions of existence?

However, it was impossible to obtain direct evidence of how natural selection changes the structure of the organism in Darwin’s time. It took almost a hundred years of searching to find the right facts.

Personal life

In 1839, thirty-year-old Charles married his cousin Emma Wedgwood. In a happy family, they had 10 children, but some of them were sickly or weak. Three died as children. Charles feared that the reason for this was a close relationship with his wife. This was reflected in his work on inbreeding.

In 1842 the Darwin family moved from London to Down. Here the naturalist was actively involved in scientific activities and lived until his last days. The founder of the evolutionary doctrine died on April 19, 1882. Buried at Westminster Abbey in London.

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