Of Men & Monkeys: Charles Darwin

Before you read this article, take a look at the people around you and imagine them covered in hair and climbing around in trees. It’s a funny thought, but an idea that we are used to now.

150 years ago one man shocked the scientific and religious world by suggesting the very same idea and creating the most significant advance in human knowledge since the days of Sir Isaac Newton.

February 12th is the 200th anniversary of the birth of the English naturalist Charles Darwin. In this article we will take a look at his life and the scientific discovery that changed the world.

Born in Shrewsbury in the county of Shropshire, he was the fifth of six children of the wealthy doctor Robert Darwin and his wife Susannah.

As a young man, Charles was persuaded to follow in his father’s footsteps and trained to become a doctor, but he found study boring and was not good at learning. Eventually his father sent him off to Christ’s College Cambridge to study for an arts degree in the hope that he would go on to become an Anglican church minister. While he was at Cambridge he became friends with John Stevens Henslow and met up with a group of naturalists who all agreed that scientific work was religious natural theology. His studies continued and he finally achieved the degree that his father had hoped for.

By now Darwin’s religious beliefs were in conflict with his scientific understanding so he became determined to show that, before accepting the current views of God’s divine design in nature, it was important to use inductive reasoning through observation.

With help from his friend Henslow he was able to get a job as a naturalist and geologist on a five-year voyage to the coast of South America on board the HMS Beagle.

Despite suffering from terrible sea-sickness. Darwin spent his time on the voyage studying the rocks, geological features and fossils as well as noting the various species of plants and animals he came across.

On the Galapagos Islands Darwin started looking for the evidence to prove the theory of divine intervention in nature. He found mockingbirds that were almost identical to ones living in Chile, but they varied slightly from island to island; and there were giant tortoises whose shells were different on each of the islands. In Australia he found the Duck-Billed Platypus and had all his beliefs tested as this creature seemed to defy all theological and scientific logic.

On 2nd October 1836 Darwin finally arrived back in England and began the huge task of organising his collections, checking his notes and putting his theories to the test. His first scientific paper was presented to the Geological Society of London in 1837 and was followed by him presenting his collection of bird specimens to the Zoological Society.

For the next two years Charles became totally obsessed with his work, he spent long hours writing papers and books and became more stressed and over-worked. Finally the stress became too much and he became very ill. He returned to his family home in Shrewsbury for a short rest where he started a relationship with his cousin Emma and, after a long exchange of letters, he finally proposed to her and they were married in 1839.

On 22nd November 1859, after over twenty years of work, Darwin’s book “On The Origin of Species” was published and very soon was causing international controversy because of his theory of natural selection having nothing to do with divine intervention. The Church of England were divided: some condemned his ideas and protested at the publication of his book; others said that it was divine intervention that created the natural selection.

Not content with re-writing the laws of nature and upsetting the Church once, in 1871 Darwin published his book “The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex”, in this book he put forward his view that Man was descended from apes – and managed to upset even more people.

Charles Darwin died in Downe, Kent, on 19th April 1882. He was given a state funeral and buried in Westminster Abbey close to the other scientific giants, John Hershel and Isaac Newton. [AT]