Charles Darwin:
Anticipating accusations of "blasphemy," he delayed until his evidence was overwhelming

Darwin was born in England, one of five children, in 1809. He was labeled "an uninspired student" by the headmaster at his school and was reprimanded for wasting his time with scientific experiments. When he was 16, his father sent him to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh. Offended by cruelty in the medical procedures of the era, including surgery without anesthetics, Darwin didn't have much enthusiasm for medicine. Two years later he left to study divinity at Cambridge University. Darwin was graduated from Cambridge in 1831 but never made it into the clergy.

Shortly after graduation, Darwin had an opportunity to participate in a voyage around the world. It was supposed to be a two-year voyage but turned into five. It was ironic that Darwin was with the HMS Beagle for so long, from 1831 to 1836, considering that he was seasick most of the time. Maybe that's why he spent as much time as possible on shore, studying the landforms of the areas the ship visited. He observed the Andes, the sea cliffs and great bodies of water. He pondered whether Earth had changed over the eras by natural events such as earthquakes, erosion and volcanic eruptions. Darwin was intrigued with the effect that natural forces had on shaping Earth's surface. Even though he had been taught that changes in the face of Earth were the result of one violent, powerful event, Darwin's observations told him something different.

Darwin realized that the face of Earth had changed and geological forms had been created sometimes by a succession of events and not just one, as generally assumed. He analyzed the formation of everything from mountains to coral reefs. During his years aboard the Beagle, Darwin was able, for the first time, to really pursue his interest in observing Earth. He kept journals, which would later be published, and he wrote letters to his friends and family sharing what he was experiencing. He spent time collecting plant and animal specimens, which he sent along with meticulous notes back to England.

When he returned to England, Darwin was welcomed as a heroic genius of sorts and accepted into the scientific fraternity. He was made a fellow of the Geological Society. Two years later he was elected to the Athenaeum, an exclusive club for men distinguished in literature, art or science. In 1839, he was elected to the Royal Society and was meeting influential people and scientists and inventors.

While working on his geographic journals about his trip, Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History of the Various Countries Visited by HMS Beagle, published in 1839, and The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs, published in 1842, Darwin was also furtively thinking about what he called "the species problem" -- how new species come to replace extinct ones. He was secretive not only because he wanted to make sure that he had enough evidence to substantiate his theory of evolution but also because he remembered what had happened to early astronomers who had suggested "absurd" ideas like Earth revolving around the sun instead of the other way around. He could have been prosecuted for breaking laws against blasphemy. Everything at that time -- from animals to earth forms -- was explained by creationism, that is, that an omnipotent God created everything new. As he looked over his evidence, Darwin found himself questioning what he had been taught and what, until then, was accepted as truth. Even though he was eager to publish his theory, Darwin worried that doing so would alienate or offend his peers within the conservative English culture. He worried about being ostracized from the society in which he was a pillar. Also, because his wife, Emma, was a devout Christian, Darwin worried about hurting her with his "heretic" theory.

What began Darwin's change in mindset from what he learned growing up with the church? At Cambridge, Darwin had met scientists who greatly influenced him. During that time, he learned to observe natural phenomena and collect specimens. Darwin's geological observations on the Beagle probably sparked the thinking that led to his theory of evolution. He thought about the accepted, fundamental creationism in comparison to the laws of nature he was witnessing. Fossils he found prompted him to ponder about similarities between extinct and living species. Darwin was puzzled and intrigued by his species problem.

Darwin studied the differences within each individual species. He had observed what he called "artificial selection," that is, animal breeders deliberately mating certain animals to obtain desirable qualities. For example, people bred cows for better milk production and race horses for speed, and Darwin wondered whether changes within species would happen naturally. He reasoned that, in nature, individuals with qualities that made them better adjusted to their environments would tend to live longer and therefore leave more offspring. Such individuals, he figured, had better fitness. Because more individuals are born than survive to breed, a constant diminishing of the less fit, a natural selection should occur, and the desirable qualities would be passed on to each new generation, leading to a population that is well adapted to its environment. Darwin felt that most of the intergenerational changes would be very small but, over time, the species would have several noticeable differences. Darwin's theory allows for new species to slowly evolve even while the original remains the same and continues to exist. The best known and controversial example being that humans and monkeys have common ancestors.

DARWIN: In his youth

People had mixed reactions to Darwin's evolutionary theory. Even though his geologic and scientific theories were widely accepted, some people ridiculed what would come to be known as "Darwinism." Critics, misunderstanding the timeline part of the concept, argued it was absurd that a monkey might give birth to a human child and vice versa. Obviously, religious opponents attacked Darwin's theory because it denied creationism. But divine intervention had no place in Darwin's world. Darwin saw humankind as part of a continuum with the rest of nature -- not separated by a divine curtain. People didn't readily welcome the inference of humans and animals being equals. Animals had always been considered inferior. Most scientists agreed with Darwin's Origin but didn't want to eliminate the idea of divinity all together. As a compromise, they came up with the theory of Theistic Evolution, the belief that evolution was divinely supervised.

Even several decades later, in 1925, Darwin's theory was still taboo in some places. John Scopes, a high school biology teacher in Tennessee, was prosecuted for teaching evolution. The highly publicized courtroom circus came to be known as the Monkey Trial. Scopes lost and was fined $100, although the decision was later overturned.

Darwin spent the next several years of his life elaborating on his ideas in Origin, while also shifting his research and writings to flowers and vegetables. Darwin had an extensive garden at his home where he raised 57 species of plants and experimented with things like cross-pollination and how sunlight affects the movement of plants. He wrote about his findings in some of his later works, The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, published in 1868, The Effects of Cross and Self Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom, published in 1876, and The Power of Movement in Plants, published in 1880. Darwin by this time was independently wealthy. He had inherited money from his father -- a plus for someone who dedicated decades of his life to collecting plant and animal specimens. Darwin created plant hybrids that were taller and more beautifully colored than the originals. One of the best known types of tulip today, called the Darwin Tulip, is beautifully colored and has strong stems.

Darwin's Origin was often referred to as "the book that shook the world." Origin sold out on its first day of publication. Darwin's theories became accepted and he came to be widely recognized before his death. Darwin was elected to the French Academy of Sciences in 1878. He published his last book in 1881. Six months later, in 1882, Darwin died. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.

— reported by Kim Pawlak, 1998