Charles Robert Darwin (1809 – 1882) was an English naturalist who undertook influential work in geology and biology. He is most famous for his proposal of the theory of evolution by natural selection, co-discovered with Alfred Russel Wallace, and described in The Origin of Species (1859). Natural selection is one of most successful and influential scientific ideas, abnd is fundamental to life science today, being seen as the core integrative idea for explaining biological phenomena.
Darwin gave up the study of medicine (at Edinburgh), deciding he was not suitable for the work (at a time when the surgery medical students observed had to be undertaken without anaesthetics). He took his degree at Cambridge, thinking he would then enter the Church – but had specific reservations about some of the articles of faith of the Anglican Church that he would need to affirm to be ordained. So he delayed. He had shown considerable interest in geology and biology, but there were no viable professional career paths in such discilpines at the time.
Darwin was then invited to join a sea voyage by a survey ship that was to visit South America – H.M.S. Beagle. The Captain was looking for a suitable gentleman for dinner conversation (as social norms of the time meant it wold not have seen as acceptable for him to eatany meals with his officers and crew who were not of his class!), and Darwin could help by working as a naturalist (a role that would otherwise fall to the ships doctor when he was not needed for medical duties). Darwin's observations of geology and the biota on the Beagle's voyage provided the starting point for the development of his ideas about evolution.
After nearly five years at sea, Darwin returned to England by which time his reputation as a scientist had been established by the reports he had sent back, and although he never had a professional scientific position, he committed the rest of his (unpaid) working life to developing his scientifc ideas. The terms neo-Darwinism (to refer to modern ideas developed from Darwin's theory of natural selection), Darwinist, and Darwinism are still commonly used.
