KNTV PHILOSOPHY

CHARLES DARWIN

BACKGROUND

Charles Darwin was a naturalist who believed that all species have evolved from a small number of ancestors through the process of natural selection or survival of the fittest. The Church of England reacted against his theories because they went against Biblical teaching, although he also had many supporters.

Today, with an estimated one in 10 people in the UK now believing in literal interpretations of religious creation stories – whether based on the Bible or the Koran – the teaching of evolution, which forms part of the KS4 National Curriculum, can be problematic. Guidance has been issued to help teachers handle the topic of creationism sensitively, should it arise in classroom discussion (see Find out more).

Influences

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829)

Lamarck was a French naturalist and evolutionist who began his working life in a bank, studying botany in his spare time. He became keeper of the royal gardens in Paris, and was later a professor at the French Museum of Natural History. In as early as 1801 he realised that species needed to adapt in order to survive changes in their environment, and he published his ideas in 1809, in Philosophie Zoologique.

Although Darwin said of Lamarck: 'This justly celebrated naturalist... first did the eminent service of arousing attention to the probability of all changes in the organic, as well as in the inorganic world, being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition,' his ideas were largely ignored or derided in his lifetime, and he died in penniless obscurity.

John Henslow (1796-1861)

Darwin's cousin introduced him to Henslow, Professor of Botany at Cambridge University, so that Darwin could find out more about the beetles he'd collected. Darwin joined one of Henslow's courses and became his favourite pupil. After Darwin graduated, it was Henslow who recommended him to the organisers of the Beagle expedition as a naturalist and gentleman companion for the Captain. Henslow continued to foster his pupil's progress and helped him in various ways, although he, along with other members of the scientific establishment, reacted against Darwin's book, The Origin of Species.

Timeline

1809 Charles Robert Darwin is born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, on 12 February.

1818-1825 Charles is a pupil at Shrewsbury Grammar School, where he achieves poor grades.

1825-1827 He studies medicine at Edinburgh University, but finds it boring and leaves.

1828 Darwin goes up to Christ's College Cambridge with a view to entering the Church, but prefers studying beetles.

1831-1836 He joins the scientific survey of South American waters as naturalist on HMS Beagle. During the trip he is appalled by slavery and amazed by the 'savages' he encounters. He collects incredible fossils, plants, skins, shells, bones and seeds.

1836 Darwin settles in London and works on his specimens.

1837 Queen Victoria comes to the throne.

1838 Charles proposes to his cousin Emma Wedgwood. His father sets the couple up financially, so that Darwin need never work and can devote all his time to his studies.

1839 Charles and Emma marry in January and in December their first son is born.

1840 Darwin becomes ill with nausea, migraines and heart pains, possibly brought on by the stress of working constantly on his theories.

1842 Darwin moves to Downe, in Kent

1842-1858 He works on his theories, but does not publish until he realises that Alfred Russel Wallace is working on similar ideas.

1858 On 1 July, papers by both Wallace and Darwin are presented to the Linnaean Society.

1859 Darwin publishes The Origin of Species amidst great controversy.

1871 He publishes The Descent of Man, in which he argues that the human race descended from apes. This causes further controversy.

1882 Darwin dies on 19 April, receives a state funeral and is buried in Westminster Abbey.