Charles Darwin and His Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection

1
Charles Darwin and His Theory of Evolution by
Natural Selection

• In Honor of the 2009 Celebration of the
  Bicentennial of the Birth of Charles Darwin and
  the Sesquicentennial of the Publication of His
  Famous Book On The Origin of Species

presented by Edward L. Crisp to interested
faculty at West Virginia University at
Parkersburg February 9, 2009
2
Charles Darwin, 1809-1882

• This year (2009) marks the 200th birthday of
  Charles Darwin, the founder of modern
  evolutionary theory. This year is also the 150th
  anniversary of the publication of On The Origin
  Of Species By Means Of Natural Selection, or the
  Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle
  for Life.

3
Charles Darwin in 1880. (This image is in the
public domain.)
The cover of the first edition of On the Origin
of Species, published on November 24, 1859.
4
A Celebration of the Intellectual Enlightenment
and Scientific Revolution Associated With
Darwins Theory

• Scientific societies, universities, scientists,
  and educators around the world, particularly in
  Britain and America, are sponsoring special
  events and publications this year in honor of the
  monumental academic contributions made by Charles
  Darwin to scientific thought especially in the
  biological, medical, agricultural, geological,
  and paleontological sciences.

5
February 12 is Charles Darwin's 200th birthday,
and we're celebrating with the introduction of
our latest title on the subject of evolutionIn
The Light of Evolution Volume II Biodiversity
and Extinction.
NAP Celebrates Darwin Day
 HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MR. DARWIN WVU is celebrating
the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin with
DarwinFest, a series of talks and presentations
examining the naturalist's work -- from his
travels to his influential theory on evolution.
"Darwin Evolutionary Science and Its Impacts on
Society" -- an interdisciplinary celebration
involving colleges and schools across the
University -- will be held from February through
early April. The events, which are free and open
to the public, will feature leading scholars and
scientists from around the world.
6
A Brief Introduction to the Life of Charles Darwin

• Charles Robert Darwin was born in Shrewsbury,
  England on February 12, 1809 (the same day that
  Abraham Lincoln was born) as the fifth child of
  Dr. Robert Waring Darwin and Susannah (Wedgewood)
  Darwin (the daughter of Josiah Wedgewood, the
  founder of the Wedgewood China dynasty).
• Dr. Robert Darwin was a successful physician and
  an astute financier1.
• Thus, from the beginning, Charles Darwin was
  destined to become independently wealthy.

• Browne, Janet, 1995, Charles Darwin Voyaging
  Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J.,
• 604 p.

7
http//www.aboutdarwin.com/pictures/pictures_01.ht
ml
8
The Mount Darwins Boyhood Home in
Shrewsbury, England
http//www.aboutdarwin.com/pictures/Shrews2/Pictur
e_02.html
9
Darwins Father and MotherRobert and Susannah
Dr. Robert Warring Darwin, 1766-1848.
Susannah (Wedgewood) Darwin, (1765-1817).
10
A Brief Introduction to the Life of Charles
Darwin Mothers Death and Early Schooling

• Darwins mother died when he was 8 years old
  (1817) and his two older sisters, Marianne and
  Caroline, stepped-up to run the household.1
• He was enrolled in Mr. Cases school during part
  of 1817 to be tutored and then was enrolled in
  Shrewsbury (Boarding) School from 1818 to 1825.
• At Shrewsbury he studied the classics, but was
  more interested in the natural sciences.

1. Browne, Janet, 1995, Charles Darwin Voyaging
Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J.,
604 p.
11
Darwin Attended Mr. Cases School During Part of
1817
http//darwinday.org/learn/darwin.html
12
Darwin Attended Shrewsbury School (A Boarding
School) 1818-1825
http//www.aboutdarwin.com/pictures/Shrews/Picture
_01.html
13
A Brief Introduction to the Life of Charles
Darwin Edinburgh and Cambridge Universities

• At the age of 16, Darwins father sent him off to
  Edinburgh University in Scotland to study
  medicine. Darwin attended for two years
  (1825-1827), but realized that he could not
  stomach the practice of medicine as it was done
  in those days. However, he did intensify his
  interest in the natural sciences while at
  Edinburgh.
• So, Darwin and his father came to the conclusion
  that he should attend Christs College at
  Cambridge University to study for the clergy of
  the Anglican Church. He attended Cambridge from
  1828-1831, taking a BA in 1831.

14
Darwin Attended Edinburgh University to Study
Medicine 1825-1827
http//darwinday.org/learn/darwin.html
15
Darwin Attended Christs College at Cambridge
University 1828-1831
http//www.christs.cam.ac.uk/alumni/distinguished-
alumni/charles_darwin/darwin_room/
16
A Brief Introduction to the Life of Charles
Darwin Geological Training

• After graduating from Cambridge University in the
  spring of 1831, Darwin went on a geological
  mapping expedition with Adam Sedgewick (Professor
  of Geology, Cambridge) to north Wales. Darwin
  had taken a course in geology while at Edinburgh,
  but Professor Sedgewick introduced Darwin to
  detailed geologic field mapping (this turned out
  to be of great value to Darwin later, as
  naturalist on board the HMS Beagle).

17
A Brief Introduction to the Life of Charles
Darwin Naturalist On Board the HMS Beagle,
1831-1836

• Upon returning from Wales in the late summer of
  1831, Darwin received a letter from his mentor at
  Cambridge University, John Henslow (Professor of
  Botany), informing him that he had an opportunity
  to be chosen as an unpaid naturalist on board the
  HMS Beagle.
• The captain of the Beagle, Robert FitzRoy, also
  wanted an intellectual companion for the voyage.
  The purpose of the voyage was to map the coast of
  South America and to circumnavigate the world.
  After meeting with Darwin, FitzRoy accepted
  Darwin as an unpaid naturalist for the voyage.
• The Beagle sailed from England in late December
  of 1831 and returned five years later in October
  of 1836.

18
HMS Beagle
http//www.sou.edu/biology/faculty/Jessup/HMSBeagl
e.jpeg
19
Second Voyage of HMS Beagle
http//www.aboutdarwin.com/voyage/voyage03.html
20
A Brief Introduction to the Life of Charles
Darwin - Naturalist On Board the HMS Beagle,
1831-1836

• Prior to the Beagle voyage, Darwin was not very
  focused on his future career. He was certainly
  not overly excited about becoming a country
  pastor.
• However, the Beagle voyage invigorated him and
  intensified his interests in the natural
  sciences. Up until then he had not questioned
  the fixidity of species and the creation account
  for the origin of species.
• His ideas started changing quickly as the voyage
  continued and as he began observing and
  collecting plants, animals, and fossils.
• In particular, his excursions onto the South
  American continent to observe the diversity of
  life in the Amazon rain forest and the collecting
  of fossils of extinct ground sloths (and other
  fossils) in Argentina started Darwin thinking
  about how species change over time, with some
  going extinct and new species arising that are
  similar, but different, than the extinct forms.

21
A Brief Introduction to the Life of Charles
Darwin The Galapagos Islands

• The HMS Beagle finished mapping the coast of
  South America in late summer 1835 and then
  continued the journey around the world.
• One of the stops on the way was the Galapagos
  Islands off the coast of Ecuador. The Beagle
  explored the islands from September 17 to October
  20, 1835.
• Darwin made observations and collections on
  several of the islands and was much struck by the
  differences in the various species of birds,
  iguanas, giant tortoises, etc. from island to
  island.
• Of course, Darwins finches of the Galapagos
  Islands are widely used today as an example of
  evolutionary adaptive radiation of a parent
  species to multiple daughter species, adapted to
  specific niches. However, although Darwin did
  collect finches on several of the islands, he did
  not see their full significance until later
  (after the voyage) as he was evaluating his
  collections and formulating his ideas on natural
  selection. Then he realized that the shape of
  the beak of the various finches was an adaptation
  to the different conditions and food sources on
  each of the islands and the partial isolation of
  the finches from each other on the several
  islands. He also speculated that a few
  individuals of a single species of finch were
  accidentally displaced (storm or some other
  mechanism) to the Galapagos Islands from the
  South American continent and adaptively radiated
  into the various species on the islands.

22
Darwins Finches
(Darwin, Charles. 1845. Journal of researches
into the natural history and geology of the
countries visited during the voyage of H.M.S.
Beagle round the world, under the Command of
Capt. Fitz Roy, R.N. 2d edition.) (Drawn by John
Gould. Image in public domain.)
23
Darwins Finches 14 Species
http//www.sulloway.org/Finches.pdf
24
A Brief Introduction to the Life of Charles
Darwin The Galapagos Islands

• Upon the return of the Beagle to London in
  October 1836 and after study of the finches by
  ornithologist John Gould (who identified the
  finches as 13 unique species to the Galapagos
  Archipelago) Darwin publishes (in the first
  edition of Voyage of the Beagle Round the World)
  in early 1837 the first statement that hints at
  his ideas on natural selection.
• Darwin stated the following relative to the
  finches
• Seeing this gradation and diversity of
  structure in one small, intimately related group
  of birds, one might really fancy that from an
  original paucity of birds in this archipelago,
  one species had been taken and modified for
  different ends.

25
Galápagos finches

• Analysis of these finches led Darwin (and later
  other scientists) to hypothesize that they were
  derived from one ancestor arriving from the
  mainland to populate and diversify across the
  islands.

26
A Brief Introduction to the Life of Charles
Darwin Development of His Theory

• Back in London after the Voyage of the Beagle,
  Darwin decides not to become a pastor, but to
  start developing his ideas on the transmutation
  of species (evolution).
• In 1839 he marries Emma Wedgewood and they live
  in London for three years, before moving in 1842
  to the village of Downe, 16 miles to the south of
  London in the county of Kent. They called their
  home Down House.
• Charles and Emma would spend the rest of their
  life at Down House. They would have 10 children,
  however, three did not live to adulthood.

27
Charles Darwin at Age 30

• Darwin at 30 years old, and three years back
  from his voyage aboard HMS Beagle. Although The
  Origin of Species was still just a few notebooks
  in length and several decades away from
  publication, Darwin had several accomplishments
  behind him, including his account The Voyage of
  the Beagle, a collection of scientific
  observations. At this time, he was also married
  to his cousin, Emma Wedgwood, with whom he would
  live a happy married life.

(From Kardong, Kenneth, 2005 An Introduction to
Biological Evolution, McGraw Hill Publishers.)
28
Charles and Emma Darwin As Painted in 1840,
about one year after their Marriage in January
1839
Watercolors by George Richmond.
29
http//www.aboutdarwin.com/pictures/pictures_01.ht
ml
30
Maer Hall Home of the Wedgewood Family
http//www.aboutdarwin.com/pictures/Maer/Pictures.
html
31
Photo by E. L. Crisp, July 2006
32
Front of Down House
Photo by E. L. Crisp, July 2006
33
Rear of Down House
Photo by E. L. Crisp, July 2006
34
Darwins Greenhouse
Photo by E. L. Crisp, July 2006
35
Inside Darwins Greenhouse
Photo by E. L. Crisp, July 2006
36
Darwins Study at Down House
This is where Darwin wrote On the Origin Of
Species.
(From Morris, Wilson, and Kohn, 1998,
Charles Darwin at Down House Published by
Heritage House)
37
A Brief Introduction to the Life of Charles
Darwin Development of His Theory

• Darwin was certainly not the first to seriously
  propose the idea of biologic evolution.
• The French naturalist Jean Baptiste de Lamarck
  (1744-1829), in the early 1800s, was the first to
  develop a cohesive theory of evolution, with
  organisms changing over time from primitive forms
  to more complex forms. However, his mechanisms
  of inheritance of acquired characteristics and an
  inherent driving force in organisms to adapt to
  their local environments did not hold up over
  time.
• Charles Darwins grandfather, Erasmus Darwin,
  also had ideas about evolution.

38
Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802)
Organic life beneath the shoreless wavesWas born
and nurs'd in ocean's pearly cavesFirst forms
minute, unseen by spheric glass,Move on the mud,
or pierce the watery massThese, as successive
generations bloom,New powers acquire and larger
limbs assumeWhence countless groups of
vegetation spring, and breathing realms of fin
and feet and wing. Erasmus Darwin. The Temple
of Nature. 1802.
http//www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/Edarwin.html
39
A Brief Introduction to the Life of Charles
Darwin Development of His Theory

• Although Darwin began to question the
  immutability of species while on the Beagle
  voyage, perhaps as early as 1832, it was 1837,
  while back in London and Cambridge, that Darwin
  began to start ordering his information and
  making various notebooks on his ideas about
  evolution.
• In 1842 he wrote a sketch of his theory,
  consisting of 35 pages, stressing the concept of
  natural selection.
• In 1844 he completed an enlargement of his ideas
  on natural selection in an essay of 230 pages.
  This larger essay was locked up in the family
  safe with instructions to his wife, Emma, to
  publish the manuscript upon his death.

40
A Brief Introduction to the Life of Charles
Darwin The Writing and Publication of His Theory

• Because he was aware of the impact his theory
  would have on Victorian England, Darwin was
  reluctant to publish his ideas.
• However, at the instigation of his friends,
  Charles Lyell and Joseph Hooker, Darwin began
  writing what he thought would be the major
  publication on his theory in 1854 entitled
  Natural Selection.
• However, Darwin never completed his writing of
  Natural Selection due to circumstances namely
  the entrance of Alfred Russell Wallace on the
  scene.

41
A Brief Introduction to the Life of Charles
Darwin The Writing and Publication of His Theory

• On June 18, 1858, Darwin received a letter from
  Alfred Russell Wallace asking Darwin if he would
  give an enclosed manuscript to Charles Lyell for
  possible publication. Wallace was a young
  naturalist, then on a collecting expedition to
  the Malay Archipelago.
• The title of the manuscript was the following
  On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart
  Indefinitely From the Original Type.
• Darwin was shocked. Wallaces short paper
  paralleled Darwins ideas and although the word
  natural selection was not used in the manuscript,
  it was clear that Wallaces explanation for the
  mechanism of evolution was the same as Darwins.
• An arrangement was made by Lyell and Hooker for
  the joint reading of Wallaces paper and some
  excerpts from Darwins work in an1844 essay (read
  by Joseph Hooker in 1847) and from an 1857 letter
  from Darwin to Asa Gray of Harvard (about natural
  selection) at a meeting of the Linnean Society in
  London. The two papers were read before the
  Linnean Society by Hooker on July 1, 1858 and
  appeared in print on August 20, 1858.

42
Alfred Russell Wallace Spurs Darwin to Write On
the Origin of Species

• Thus, spurred on by the work of Wallace, Darwin
  rushes to complete what he referred to as an
  abstract of his theory.
• On the Origin of Species was published on
  November 24, 1859. For this first edition, 1250
  copies were printed and sold out within a few
  hours.

43
A Brief Introduction to the Life of Charles
Darwin The Writings of Charles Darwin

• After publication of On the Origin of Species
  1859, Darwin continued to study, research, and
  publish. He completed a total of 6 editions of
  On the Origin of Species, the last in 1872.
• He wrote several other volumes dealing with
  geology, zoology, and botany.
• He also wrote several scientific journal
  articles.
• He wrote about 2000 letters to family, friends,
  colleagues, other scientists, etc. that have been
  documented.
• The scope of his scientific writing is almost
  unfathomable.

44
Books Written or Edited by Darwin
http//darwin-online.org.uk/Introduction.html
45
A Brief Introduction to the Life of Charles
Darwin The Death of Charles Darwin

• Throughout the last 20 years or so of his life,
  Darwin was plagued by an unknown illness which
  reduced his productivity (although he was still
  very productive)
• The strange illness left him fatigued, nauseated,
  and often with fits of vomiting
• Darwin passed away at home on April 19, 1882 at
  the age of 73.
• He was buried in Westminster Abbey April 26, 1882
  next to the grave of Sir John Herschel and about
  20 feet from the grave of Sir Isaac Newton.

46
The Basics of Darwins Theory of Evolution By
Natural Selection

• Individuals within species produce many more
  offspring than can possibly survive and/or become
  reproductively successful.
• Thus, there is a tendency for an intrinsic
  exponential increase in the number of individuals
  within a species.
• There is inherent variation in the traits of
  individuals within a species.
• There is competition for limited resources
  amongst the individuals within a species.
• Only a few of the individuals within a species
  survive to sexual maturity and become
  reproductively successful.
• Those individuals of a species with more
  favorable variations for survival in their
  environment will, on average, survive and become
  reproductively successful, thus passing on their
  favorable traits to their offspring.
• This, in its simplicity, is Natural Selection.

47
As Stated by Darwin in On the Origin of Species,
1859

• As many more individuals of each species are
  born than can possibly survive and as,
  consequently, there is a frequently recurring
  struggle for existence, it follows that any
  being, if it vary however slightly in any manner
  profitable to itself, under the complex and
  sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a
  better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally
  selected. From the strong principle of
  inheritance, any selected variety will tend to
  propagate its new and modified form.

48
Last Sentence from Darwins On the Origin of
Species, 1859

• There is grandeur in this view of life, with its
  several powers, having been originally breathed
  by the Creator into a few forms or into one and
  that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on
  according to the fixed law of gravity, from so
  simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful
  and most wonderful have been, and are being,
  evolved.

49
THE END