Essay on The Life and Theories of Charles Darwin

During the time when Charles Darwin was alive (1809-1882) most of the Western culture believed that the world was created by God and only several thousand years old. They believed that our world was always like it was then. So when Darwin wrote The Origin of Species it shook up both the cultural and scientific views of his time. His views that evolution occurs by natural selection was one of the most radial theories during his time, yet today is widely accepted as a fact among most of the world.

The 19th century was one of the most revolutionized eras in the history of the world. It is in this time period that the power shift was on a constant stir; empires falling, empires rising, and important discoveries that would change the world forever. Many Significant theories and belief systems were established, as well as the rise of some of the potent people in history. One person that is remembered for his work and celebrated for his theories is English biologist and scientist Charles Darwin. He is the sole theorists who conjured up the idea of human evolution, commonly known today as “Darwinism”. In effort to ensure this is recognized this paper continues on into the life of Charles Darwin, his story, his achievements,

Darwin and Evolution are inextricably linked in the minds of most people who have had the opportunity to study them in basic biology. However, Darwin's theories of selection and survival of the fittest have been applied to moral, economic, political, and other cultural aspects of society. Dennett briefly touched on some of the political and social ramifications of Darwin's theories in the final chapter of Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Other philosophers and thinkers have also adapted Darwin's evolutionary ideas, in order to apply them in a societal or cultural context. One great example of this adaptation of the biological concept of evolution, is the appearance of Social Darwinism during the 19th century.

The main claims of evolution are that all species are connected, species change, and that genes of different species are not identical due to mutations. PBS’s film, What Darwin Never Knew, explains that “all species are connected and they change through Darwin’s ‘descent with modification’ theory” (What Darwin Never Knew). The species are connected, yet varying through mutations. “Mutations are a critical ingredient in the recipe for evolution. Without mutation, everything would stay constant, generation after generation. Mutation generates variation, differences between individuals” (What Darwin Never Knew). In different species, most of the DNA is similar, with the exception of one different sequence. The mutations can cause changes between species, causing variation. Overall, it

Darwin’s observations from the islands made him want to come up with some explanation to why this occurred. He began to do research of each the species that had lived on these islands and observe all of the

Darwin was the British naturalist who became famous for his theories of evolution and natural selection. Like several scientists before him, Darwin believed all the life on earth evolved over millions of years from a few common ancestors. From 1831 to 1836 Darwin served as naturalist aboard the H.M.S. Beagle on a British science expedition around the world. In South America Darwin found fossils of extinct animals that were similar to modern species. On the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific Ocean he noticed many variations among plants and animals of the same general type as those in South America. The expedition visited places around the world, and Darwin studied plants and animals everywhere he went, collecting specimens for further study.

Only in the past one hundred years have men finally put aside their Biblical and mythical tales about creation, and looked to the facts in order to piece together a logical explanation for the origin of mankind. In turn, men were now able to explain the enigma of their origin without the presence of a supernatural being responsible for their creation. At the head of a slew of men trying to uncover logical reasons for mans derivation was Charles Darwin. Darwin was the most accomplished of these men because he was able to put forth a logical conjecture that was based upon facts and observations. This theory, for a short time, was able to end the feud among educated men because many now put their trust in this new “theory of evolution”.

Charles Robert Darwin has had the greatest influence on the world by proving the evolution of living things. Charles Darwin had first noticed the similarities of plants and animals when he took a five-year cruise on the H.M.S. Beagle, which was available to him through a friend from school. During the cruise Charles Darwin started becoming interested with the similarities between the plants and animals that were similar on different islands with similar climates, so he decided to study them more closely.

Summarize the aspects of Darwin 's life/personal experiences/beliefs that you believed were most influential to him and explain how.

On November 24th, 1859, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life by Charles Darwin (renamed On the Origin of Species 13 years later) was published in London, England. In it, Charles Darwin specified his observations and gave his insight on what he thought caused evolution. He called it "natural selection." Before this, nearly everyone believed that a single God created every living organism that none of them had changed a bit since then. Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species influenced the minds of 1859 and impacted all of science.

When Charles Darwin first developed his theory of Natural selection, he discovered that “Individuals in populations vary their “heritable” traits” (Leicht and McAllister, 2006. p. 157). And that “if a particular inherited trait confers a higher likelihood of survival and reproduction, individuals with that trait will leave more offspring than other individuals in the population” (Leicht and McAllister, 2006. p.157). With this in mind, during project 3 we took pooled data of the entire class in order to analyze extracted DNA to evaluate the genetic variation between the genes TAS2R38 and PV92. The gene TAS2R38 is located on chromosome seven, while PV92 is located on chromosome sixteen. TAS2R38 encodes a protein that is responsible for some people being able to taste bitter things like Phenylthiocarbamide paper also known as “PTC paper” (Wooding, 2006). Unlike the TAS2R38 gene, PV92 “does not encode a protein” (Leicht and McAllister, 2006). It, instead, is an Alu element and uses primers to insert itself in PCR products in order to determine whether or not it is present (Batzer et al., 1994). Since the TAS2R38 and PV92 genes are well known to be easily distinguishable using gel electrophoresis for PCR products, we used them because neither loci will express any fixation or any loss of an allele in small populations (Leicht and McAllister, 2006).

Before the theory of evolution was a widespread theory in the world of science, Greek and Roman philosophers had their own theories about how life came to its present state and where it was going from there. One theory at the time was that all organisms are reflections of a “perfect” form and were coming closer to it all the time, although this was the less accepted theory even though it was closer to the truth proven hundreds of years after, while another was that all things were simply places on Earth in their present form, common to modern day Creationism. Even after this, Darwin was not the first to try explain evolution, he just provided convincing proof and published his ideas. The publishing of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution was

Charles Darwin was born on February 12, 1809 in Shrewsbury England at about the same hour as Abraham Lincoln. He was born to a successful family, his father was a doctor and his grandfather was a famous biologist. Darwin was not a great student and he decided to become a clergy so he transferred to Cambridge University. Instead of becoming cleargy Darwin decided to study geology.

Charles Darwin was a man who shaped the way in which we think about evolution in modern times. He brought forth and described the theory of natural selection and survival of the fittest. To fully understand modern evolutionary thoughts it is necessary for one to completely understand the early theories of Charles Darwin. In this paper I will provide the reader with a complete background on Charles Darwin, describe his voyage on the HMS Beagle, and discuss his theory of natural selection.

Charles Darwin's theory of evolution centres on the idea that species compete to survive, and favorable characteristics are passed on from one generation to the next. Darwin said that evolution took place by a process of natural selection or survival of the fittest. This meant that the animals and plants best suited to their surroundings survived and were able to pass on their genes to their offspring. The ones that weren't best suited died off and didn't get the chance to reproduce.