The Rise of Darwinism

Charles Darwin (1809-82) was not the first naturalist to think that organic evolution might have occurred (see important evolutionists before Darwin).

Darwin published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in November 1859, by which time he had been developing the theory of evolution by natural selection for at least 22 years. For an account of this development, and the fluctuations in Darwin’s own religious belief, see the biography by Desmond and Moore(1992). The importance of the Origin is that Darwin a) presented a vast amount of evidence for evolution and b) proposed a mechanism by which it could give rise, given time, to the vast variety of life-forms he had observed. See Darwin’s evolutionary scheme.

Darwin’s challenge to theological positionswas a profound one, more subtle than is implied in the caricature - Darwin v. Christianity.

Email link | Feedback | Contributed by: Dr. Christopher Southgate
Source: God, Humanity and the Cosmos  (T&T Clark, 1999)