Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882)

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...was born on February 12, 1809 in Shrewsbury, England. He was the fifth child and second son of Robert Waring Darwin and Susannah Wedgwood.

Darwin was the British naturalist who became famous for his theories of evolution and natural selection. Like several scientists before him, Darwin believed all the life on earth evolved (developed gradually) over millions of years from a few common ancestors. From 1831 to 1836 Darwin served as naturalist aboard the H.M.S. Beagle on a British science expedition around the world. In South America Darwin found fossils of extinct animals that were similar to modem species. On the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific Ocean he noticed many variations among plants and animals of the same general type as those in South America. The expedition visited places around the world, and Darwin studied plants and animals everywhere he went, collecting specimens for further study.

Upon his return to London Darwin conducted thorough research of his notes and specimens. Out of this study grew several related theories:

• One, evolution did occur.

• Two, evolutionary change was gradual, requiring thousands to millions of years.

• Three, the primary mechanism for evolution was a process called natural selection.

• And four, the millions of species alive today arose from a single original life form through a branching process called “specialization."

Darwin's theory of evolutionary selection holds that variation within species occurs randomly and that the survival or extinction of each organism is determined by that organism's ability to adapt to its environment. He set these theories forth in his book caIled, “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life" (1859) or "The Origin of Species" for short. After the publication of Origin of Species, Darwin continued to write on botany, geology, and zoology until his death in 1882. He is buried in Westminster Abbey.

Darwin's work had a tremendous impact on religious thought. Many people strongly opposed the idea of evolution because it conflicted with their religious convictions. Darwin avoided talking about the theological and sociological aspects of his work, but other writers used his theories to support their own theories about society.

Darwin was a reserved, thorough, hard working scholar who concerned himself with the feelings and emotions not only of his family, but friends and peers as weIl. It has been supposed that Darwin renounced evolution on his deathbed. Shortly after his death,  temperance campaigner and evangelist Lady Elizabeth Hope claimed she visited Darwin at his deathbed, and witnessed the renunciation. Her story was printed in a Boston newspaper and subsequently spread. Lady Hope's story was refuted by Darwin's daughter Henrietta who stated, "I was present at his deathbed ... He never recanted any of his scientific views, either then or earlier.“

„At the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, the whole world. It was still desolate and dark and water covered everything. God’s spirit was floating above it.

There God ordered: ‘Light shall emit!’ and it got bright. He separated the light from the darkness and called it ‘day and night’. He was joyful because it was good—the first day.

Then God ordered: ‘There shall be a vault which separates the water!’ and it happened. The vault God called it sky—the second day.

Then God ordered: ‘The water on the earth shall gather at one place to make land visible!’ and it happened. He was joyful because it was good. He called the land ‘earth’ and the water ‘sea’. 

Then he ordered: ‘The earth shall become green and every kind of plants and trees should grow on it and carry fruits and seed!’ And again God’s wish came true and he was joyful—the third day.

Then God ordered: ‘There shall be lights on the sky which make the day and night different and on which days and years can be defined!’ He made two big lights, the sun and the moon and all the stars and the lights made day and night different. He was joyful because it was good—the fourth day.

Then he ordered: ‘There shall be life in the water and birds should fly through the sky!’ He created the big sea monsters and all other kinds of animals in the sea and in the sky and he was joyful because it was good. He blessed the creations and told them to breed and to fill the sky and the sea—the fifth day.

Then he ordered: ‘The earth shall produce life; wild animals, cattle, crawling animals!’ and he made every kind of animal and he was joyful. Then God said: ‘Now we will create the man, a creature that looks us alike. He should have the power over everything on the earth!’ and God made man and woman. He blessed them and told them to breed and possess the earth and everything was very good—the sixth day.

On the seventh day God had finished his creation and rested. That’s why he explained: ‘This day is holy, it’s mine.’

So the heaven and the earth were formed; God had made them.”

This was the theory of the origin of the world for a long time and most people believed it without any doubts. And also when they found some bones of dinosaurs, of which they knew that they didn’t exist anywhere on earth anymore, they kept to the Bible: They believed that all the dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals had been extinct during the flood at Noah’s time and all the animals which still existed on earth were those, which Noah had taken up onto his arch.

Some scientist also studied the animals which were fossilized and said that there must have been more than only one single flood. Because they noticed that the stones had different stratums they thought that each stratum was formed by a separate flood at a separate time. They noticed that the stratums which were found deeper in the earth than others contained the simpler fossilized animals but it wasn’t really thought about it. Other people concluded that after a flood the surviving beings will transform themselves into something, which is ‘one level above’; people shall turn into angels, animals into intelligent beings, plants into animals and minerals into plants for example. And other people, from the religious part again, considered all the theories of extinct animals as rubbish. And if bones of a prehistoric animal had been found they just said: “God made those skeletons to fool people who don’t believe the Bible and make theories about extinct beings.” Yet the story of God’s creation of the world was spread widely until…

Mr. J.B. De Lamarck formulated a theory, saying that for example the short-necked ancestor of the giraffe learned how to stretch his neck and passed this ability on to his kids. These stretched their necks again a bit longer. And so on and on and on.... Today we know this isn't true, but the work of  Mr. De Lamarck was special for his time. He was the first one to say that animals can change, that they aren't „God-given“.

BUT the theory of CHARLES DARWIN is still today respected and correct. Once on a trip to the Galapagos-Islands he noticed that the same species of birds had different beaks, depending on which island they lived and what kind of food was available there. He couldn't imagine God having time to create so many different mutations. So his theory was that, retaking the example of the giraffe, there where giraffes with shorter and with longer necks because of slight mutations and damaged DNA material. Those with long necks could reach the food better than the others and they survived, the short necked died out.

Rumy, Kathrin and David

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