Charles Darwin and the Theory of EvolutionCharles Darwin lived from 1809-1882, although Darwin has been dead for more than acentury, people are still interpreting, defending, or criticizing his theories of evolution. Before he became England's greatest biologist, he was such an indifferent student that hisfather declared, "You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and you willbe a disgrace to yourself and all your family." Charles Robert Darwin was born in Shrewsbury on Feb. 12, 1809. Darwin'sfather was a successful and wealthy physician; his mother was a daughter of JosiahWedgwood, the famous British potter. She died when Charles was 8 years old, and theboy was reared by three older sisters, who constantly found fault with him. At school young Charles had no interest in classical languages and ancienthistory. He liked best to collect shells, birds' eggs, and coins. He also watched birds andinsects and helped his brother make chemical experiments at home. These activities, hesaid in later years, were the best part of his education. At the age of 16, Darwin began to study medicine at the University ofEdinburgh. Here too he found the courses dull, and watching operations made him ill. In1828 he transferred to Cambridge, intending to become a clergyman. Instead, he devotedmost of his time to studying plants and animals and later to geology. He received hisbachelor's degree in 1831. Then came the event that shaped his life--an appointment as unpaid naturalist onthe exploring ship Beagle. It left England on Dec. 27, 1831, to make astronomicalobservations, chart the southern coasts of South America, and sail around the world. Thevoyage, with many side trips on land, lasted until October 1836. During those five yearsDarwin examined geologic formations, collected fossils, and studied plants and animals. He also began to doubt that the many species of living things had come into being at onemoment. In 1837, soon after returning to England, he began to collect information on thesubject now called evolution.

Early Ideas of Evolution Evolution was not a new idea, even in Darwin's day. Long before the time ofChrist, philosophers had explained the great variety of plants and animals by proposing"natural" ways they could have developed. The Christian bishop, St. Augustine, thoughtthat some species of plants and animals had developed from earlier creations. Before1600 Sir Walter Raleigh concluded that dogs had turned into wolves and that thedifferent races of men were related. Several philosophers also declared that newconditions caused plants to change into new varieties or species. Georges-Louis Leclerc, comte de Buffon (1707-88), in his 36-volume `NaturalHistory', declared that modern animals had evolved, or "degenerated," from others and soon back to the beginning. Some changes, he thought, were produced when differentforms interbred; others were caused by food, climate, pressure, and so on. According toBuffon's theory, the hippopotamus and elephant are large because their ancestors ate agreat deal of food; the hair of lions is tawny because it has been bleached by the brilliantsunlight of the tropical plains. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) maintained that plants and animals evolvedbecause of an inborn tendency to progress from simple to complex forms. Environment,however, modified this progression and so did use or disuse of parts. Giraffes, forexample, developed long necks by straining to reach the leaves of trees; snakes lost theirlegs by crawling. Birds, said Lamarck, came from hairy ancestors. Their attempts to flyforced air into the hairs and so turned them into feathers. Darwin knew about these attempts to explain evolution. His grandfather,Erasmus Darwin, had published several books containing ideas much like Lamarck'stheory of use and disuse. He felt, however, that early writers on the subject hadspeculated too much and had collected too few facts. As a result, they failed to convincethe scientific world that evolution had actually taken place. They also failed to give areasonable explanation of how changes might have produced the different organismsfound upon the Earth today.