Darwin, Charles Robert definition of Darwin, Charles Robert in the Free Online Encyclopedia.

Darwin, Charles Robert, 1809–82, English naturalist, b. Shrewsbury; grandson of Erasmus Darwin Darwin, Erasmus, 1731–1802, English physician and poet. During most of his life he practiced medicine in Lichfield and cultivated a botanical garden. He was a prominent member of the Lichfield literary group, which included Anna Seward and Thomas Day .
..... Click the link for more information. and of Josiah Wedgwood Wedgwood, Josiah, 1730–95, English potter, descendant of a family of Staffordshire potters and perhaps the greatest of all potters. At the age of nine he went to work at the plant owned by his brother Thomas in Burslem, and in 1751, with a partner, he started
..... Click the link for more information. . He firmly established the theory of organic evolution evolution, concept that embodies the belief that existing animals and plants developed by a process of gradual, continuous change from previously existing forms. This theory, also known as descent with modification, constitutes organic evolution.
..... Click the link for more information. known as Darwinism Darwinism, concept of evolution developed in the mid-19th cent. by Charles Robert Darwin . Darwin's meticulously documented observations led him to question the then current belief in special creation of each species.
..... Click the link for more information. . He studied medicine at Edinburgh and for the ministry at Cambridge but lost interest in both professions during the training. His interest in natural history led to his friendship with the botanist J. S. Henslow Henslow, John Stevens (hĕnz`lō), 1796–1861, English botanist.
..... Click the link for more information. ; through him came the opportunity to make a five-year cruise (1831–36) as official naturalist aboard the Beagle. This started Darwin on a career of accumulating and assimilating data that resulted in the formulation of his concept of evolution and his explication of natural and sexual selection selection. In Darwinism , the mechanism of natural selection is considered of major importance in the process of evolution . Popular formulations sometimes envisage a struggle for existence in which direct competition for mates or for various factors in the
..... Click the link for more information. . He spent the remainder of his life carefully and methodically working over the information from his copious notes and from every other available source.

Independently, the naturalist A. R. Wallace Wallace, Alfred Russel, 1823–1913, English naturalist. From his study of comparative biology in Brazil and in the East Indies, he evolved a concept of evolution similar to that of Charles Darwin .
..... Click the link for more information. had worked out a concept of evolution similar to Darwin's. Wallace sent a paper outlining his theory to Darwin in 1858, and its striking coincidences with Darwin's work led Darwin's friends to move to assure that the more cautious Darwin, who had been slow to publish, would receive credit for the independence and priority of his ideas. The next year Darwin set forth the structure of his theory and massive support for it in the superbly organized On the Origin of Species, supplemented and elaborated in his many later books, notably The Descent of Man (1871). He also formulated a theory of the origin of coral coral, small, sedentary marine animal, related to the sea anemone but characterized by a skeleton of horny or calcareous material. The skeleton itself is also called coral.
..... Click the link for more information. reefs.

Bibliography

See his autobiography (ed. by N. Barlow, 1958) and Life and Letters (ed. by F. Darwin, 1887; repr. with intro. by G. G. Simpson, 1962); letters of Darwin and Henslow, ed. by N. Barlow (1967); The Corespondence of Charles Darwin ed. by F. Burkhardt et al. (10 vol., 1987–97); J. Barzun, Darwin, Marx, Wagner (rev. ed. 1958); G. Wichler, Charles Darwin: The Founder of the Theory of Evolution and Natural Selection (tr. 1961); A. Moorehead, Darwin and the Beagle (1969, rev. ed. 1979); P. Appleman, ed., Darwin (1970, repr. 1983); D. L Hull, Darwin and His Critics (1983); R. J. Richards, Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior (1989); R. Dawkins, River Out of Eden (1995); D. C. Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1995); N. Eldredge, Reinventing Darwin (1995); S. Jones, Darwin's Ghost: "The Origin of Species" Updated (2000); J. Browne, Charles Darwin: Voyaging (1995) and Charles Darwin: The Power of Place (2002).