Charles Robert Darwin

Charles Robert Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin, aged 45 in 1854, by then working towards publication of On the Origin of Species.
Born	12 February 1809(1809-02-12) Mount House, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England
Died	19 April 1882(1882-04-19) (aged 73) Down House, Downe, Kent, England
Residence	England
Citizenship	British
Nationality	British
Fields	Naturalist
Institutions	Geological Society of London
Alma mater	University of Edinburgh University of Cambridge
Academic advisors	John Stevens Henslow Adam Sedgwick
Known for	The Voyage of the Beagle On The Origin of Species Natural selection
Influences	Alexander von Humboldt John Herschel Charles Lyell
Influenced	Joseph Dalton Hooker Thomas Henry Huxley George John Romanes Ernst Haeckel
Notable awards	Royal Medal (1853) Wollaston Medal (1859) Copley Medal (1864)
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Charles Robert Darwin FRS (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist.
He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.
He published his theory with compelling evidence for evolution in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species.The scientific community and much of the general public came to accept evolution as a fact in his lifetime.However, it was not until the emergence of the modern evolutionary synthesis from the 1930s to the 1950s that a broad consensus developed that natural selection was the basic mechanism of evolution.In modified form, Darwin's scientific discovery is the unifying theory of the life sciences, explaining the diversity of life.
Darwin's early interest in nature led him to neglect his medical education at the University of Edinburgh; instead, he helped to investigate marine invertebrates. Studies at the University of Cambridge encouraged his passion for natural science.His five-year voyage on HMS Beagle established him as an eminent geologist whose observations and theories supported Charles Lyell's uniformitarian ideas, and publication of his journal of the voyage made him famous as a popular author.
Puzzled by the geographical distribution of wildlife and fossils he collected on the voyage, Darwin investigated the transmutation of species and conceived his theory of natural selection in 1838.Although he discussed his ideas with several naturalists, he needed time for extensive research and his geological work had priority.He was writing up his theory in 1858 when Alfred Russel Wallace sent him an essay which described the same idea, prompting immediate joint publication of both of their theories.Darwin's work established evolutionary descent with modification as the dominant scientific explanation of diversification in nature.In 1871, he examined human evolution and sexual selection in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, followed by The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. His research on plants was published in a series of books, and in his final book, he examined earthworms and their effect on soil.
In recognition of Darwin's pre-eminence as a scientist, he was one of only five nineteenth-century non-royal personages from the United Kingdom to be honoured by a state funeral,and was buried in Westminster Abbey, close to John Herschel and Isaac Newton.