 He
was born in Shrewsbury to a moderately wealthy family with
a strong intellectual heritage. His grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, was
a physician, poet and biologist who laid some of the groundwork
for the grandson's revolutionary ideas. Charles attended Christ's
College at Cambridge with initial thoughts of entering the clergy,
but soon took up studies in biology, zoology and geology. From 1831
to 1836, he served as naturalist aboard the HMS Beagle on its
scientific mission to South America and the Pacific. Back in England,
he published a series of scientific treatises which established
his reputation as one of the prominent thinkers of his day. From 1842
onwards, he lived on a country estate in Kent and pursued his studies
among its gardens and livestock.
By 1844, he had written the initial draft of his groundbreaking
treatise on evolution and natural selection. However, he left this
work unpublished for several years, preferring to refine and elaborate
its core ideas. In 1858, he read a forthcoming paper by fellow scientist
Alfred Russell Wallace whose thesis closely paralleled Darwin's
own unpublished ideas, an event which pushed Darwin to go public
with his own research. Both Wallace's and Darwin's papers were presented
to the Linnean Society in a famous July, 1858 meeting. Darwin published
The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859,
sparking decades of contentious debate which ultimately led to the
universal scientific recognition of Darwin's thesis. In later years,
he developed his ideas further in monographs on different types
of plant and animal life.
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note:
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Shrewsbury：什鲁斯伯里[英国英格兰西部城市]
physician: 内科医生 (注意区分physicist， 物理学家)
revolutionary：创新的
HMS：（英国）皇家海军舰船 (Her/ His Majesty's Ship)
treatises：论文
The Origin of Species: "物种起源"
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Updated: 2001-06-25 01:00