The Origin of Species

First published on November 24, 1859, The Origin of Species (full title On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life) by English naturalist Charles Darwin is one of the pivotal works in scientific history, and arguably the pre-eminent work in biology. In it, Darwin makes "one long argument,"with copious empircal examples as support, for his theory that "groups" of organisms, (now called populations) rather than individual organisms, gradually evolve through the process of natural selectionÐ'--a mechanism effectively introduced to the public at large by the book. The work presents detailed scientific evidence he had accumulated both on the Voyage of the Beagle in the 1830s and since his return, painstakingly laying out his theory and refuting the doctrine of "Created kinds" underlying the theories of Creation biology which were then widely accepted.

Even for the non-specialist the book is quite readable, and it attracted widespread interest on publication. Although the ideas presented in it are supported by overwhelming scientific evidence and are widely accepted by scientists today, they are still, in some parts of the world, highly controversial, particularly among non-scientists who perceive them to contradict their own view of the facts and various religious texts (see Creation-evolution controversy).

Contents [hide]

1 Background

1.1 Before "The Origin"

1.2 Inception of Darwin's theory

1.3 First writings on the theory

2 Publication

2.1 Publication of The Origin

3 Darwin's theory, as presented

3.1 The basic theory

3.2 Variation and heredity

4 Public reaction

5 Misconceptions, and comparison to Wallace's theory

6 Philosophical implications

7 References

8 External links

9 See also

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Background

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Before "The Origin"

Main article: history of evolutionary thought

The idea of biological evolution was supported in Classical times by the Greek and Roman atomists, notably Lucretius. With the dominance of Christianity came belief in the Biblical story of creation according to Genesis, with the doctrine that God had directly "Created kinds" of organisms which were immutable. Other ideas resurfaced, and in 17th century English the word evolution (from the Latin word "evolutio", meaning "unroll like a scroll") began to be used to refer to an orderly sequence of events, particularly one in which the outcome was somehow contained within it from the start.

Natural history, aiming to investigate and catalogue the wonders of God's works, developed greatly in the 18th century. Discoveries showing the extinction of species were explained by catastrophism, the belief that animals and plants were periodically annihilated as a result of natural catastrophes and that their places were taken by new species created ex nihilo (out of nothing). Countering this, James Hutton's uniformitarian theory of 1785 envisioned gradual development over aeons of time.

By 1796 Charles Darwin's grandfather Erasmus Darwin had put forward ideas of common descent with organisms "acquiring new parts" in response to stimuli then passing these changes to their offspring, and in 1802 he hinted at natural selection. In 1809 Jean-Baptiste Lamarck developed a similar theory, with "needed" traits being acquired then passed on. These theories of Transmutation were developed by Radicals in Britain like Robert Edmund Grant. At this time the work of Thomas Malthus showing that human populations increased to exceed resources influenced liberal thinking, resulting in the Whig Poor Law of the 1830s.

Various ideas were developed to reconcile Creation biology with scientific findings, including Charles Lyell's uniformitarian idea that each species had its "centre of creation" and was designed for the habitat, but would go extinct when the habitat changed. Charles Babbage believed God set up laws that operated to produce species, as a divine programmer, and Richard Owen followed Johannes Peter MÐ"јller in thinking that living matter had an "organising energy", a life-force that directed the growth of tissues and also determined the lifespan of the individual and of the species.

The publication of the anonymous Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844) then paved the way for the