Great People around the World: CharlesDarwin

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<h3>Charles Darwin</h3>

<pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>Like many modern students, Charles Darwin exceeded only in subjects that</pre><pre>intrigued him.</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>Although his father was a physician, Darwin was uninterested in medicine</pre><pre>and he was unable</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>to stand the sight of surgery. He did eventually obtain a degree in</pre><pre>theology from Cambridge</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>University, although theology too was of minor interest to him. What</pre><pre>Darwin really liked to</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>do was to tramp over hills, observing plants and animals, collecting new</pre><pre>specimens,</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>scrutinizing their structures, and categorizing his findings. </pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>In 1831, when Darwin was only 22 years old, the British government sent</pre><pre>Her Majesty^Òs Ship</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>Beagle on a 5 year expedition that would take them first along the</pre><pre>coastline of South</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>America and then onward around the world. As was common on such</pre><pre>expeditions, the Beagle</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>would carry along a naturalist to observe and collect geological and</pre><pre>biological specimens</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>encountered along the route. Thanks to the recommendation of one of</pre><pre>Darwin^Òs previous</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>college professors, he was offered the position of naturalist aboard the</pre><pre>Beagle. </pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>The Beagle sailed to South America, making many stops along the coast.</pre><pre>Here Darwin</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>observed the plants and animals of the tropics and was stunned by the</pre><pre>diversity of species</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>compared with Europe. </pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>Perhaps the most significant stopover of the voyage was the month spent in</pre><pre>the Galapagos</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>Islands off of the northwestern coast of South America. It was here that</pre><pre>Darwin found huge</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>populations of tortoises; and he found that different islands were home to</pre><pre>distinctively</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>different types of tortoises. He then found that on islands without</pre><pre>tortoises, pricky pear</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>cactus plants grew with their juicy pads and fruits spread out over the</pre><pre>ground. And on</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>islands that had hourdes of tortoises, the prickly pears grew</pre><pre>substantially thick, tall</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>trunks, bearing the fleshy pads and fruits high above the reach of the</pre><pre>tough mouthed</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>tortoises. He then wondered if the differences in these organisms could</pre><pre>have arisen after</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>they became isolated from one another on seperate islands. </pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>In 1836, Darwin returned to England after the 5 years with the expedition.</pre><pre>He became</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>established as one of the foremost naturalist of his time. But constantly</pre><pre>gnawing at his</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>mind was the problem of the origin of the species. </pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>Darwin sought to prove his ideal of evolution with simple examples. The</pre><pre>various breeds of</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>dogs provided a striking example of what Darwin sought to prove. Dogs</pre><pre>descended from</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>wolves, and even today the two will readily cross-breed. With rare</pre><pre>exceptions, however,</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>few modern dogs actually resemble wolves. Some breeds, such as the</pre><pre>Chihuahua and the</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>Great Dane, are so different from one another that they would be</pre><pre>considered seperate</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>species in the wild. If humans could cross-breed such radically different</pre><pre>dogs in only a</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>few hundred years, Darwin reasoned that nature could produce the same</pre><pre>spectrum of living</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>organisms given the hundreds of millions of years that she had been</pre><pre>allowed. </pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>Darwin also maintained that seperate species evolve as a result of the</pre><pre>principles of</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>natural selection, or survival of the fittest. He knew that many more</pre><pre>members of a</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>species are born than can possibly survive. He also postulated that strong</pre><pre>positive genes</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>would be bred and rebred into each new generation of animals. </pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>Darwin, contrary to popular belief, never said that human beings evolved</pre><pre>from apes. He</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>said that all life began as a primordial soup, with molecules acting on</pre><pre>each other. So</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>from the first single celled organism all life came. One single organism,</pre><pre>when acted on</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>by several different molecules could give rise to many different species</pre><pre>of animals. It</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>is in this way that he stated that Ape and man were similar..each having a</pre><pre>similar life^Òs</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>beginning. </pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>Darwin^Òs theories caused the people of the time to begin to question</pre><pre>where it was that</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>they actually came from. His response was the book On the Origin of</pre><pre>Species. In it he</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>addressed the concerns of the people. He said "It is interesting to</pre><pre>contemplate an</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing</pre><pre>in the bushes,</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the</pre><pre>damp earth, and</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms....have all been</pre><pre>produced by laws</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>acting around us. These laws, taken in the highest sense, being Growth</pre><pre>with Reproduction;</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>Inheritance and Variability...; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to</pre><pre>a struggle for</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of</pre><pre>Character and</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>Extinction of less-improved forms....There is grandeur in this view of</pre><pre>life, with its</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into</pre><pre>one, and that,</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixded laws of</pre><pre>gravity, from so</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have</pre><pre>been, and are</pre><pre><![if !supportEmptyParas]> <![endif]><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>being, evolved." </pre></div>

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Tuesday 20 September 2011

CharlesDarwin

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