Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin was an English naturalist who developed evolution by natural selection and published On the Origin of Species in 1859.

HMS Beagle: The British survey ship that carried Charles Darwin on a five-year voyage from 1831 to 1836. Its voyage gave Darwin the observations and specimens that shaped his evolutionary thinking.
Natural selection: The process by which heritable traits that improve reproductive success become more common across generations. Darwin proposed it as the main mechanism driving evolutionary adaptation.
Alfred Russel Wallace: A British naturalist who independently developed a theory of evolution by natural selection. Wallace’s similar theory prompted the joint presentation of their ideas in 1858.
The Descent of Man: Darwin’s 1871 book applying evolutionary theory to human origins and sexual selection. It extended Darwin’s account of common descent to humans and their traits.
Mendelian inheritance: The pattern of heredity in which discrete genetic factors pass from parents to offspring. Darwin lacked a correct model of inheritance to explain how variation persists.
Galápagos Islands: An Ecuadorian archipelago in the Pacific Ocean, known for distinctive species found across its islands. Differences among island species helped Darwin consider how populations change.
Common descent: The hypothesis that organisms share ancestors and that lineages branch from earlier forms of life. Darwin used branching ancestry to explain both shared traits and biological diversity.
Joseph Dalton Hooker: A British botanist and explorer who became one of Darwin’s closest scientific friends and advisers. Hooker helped arrange the 1858 presentation of Darwin and Wallace’s papers.
Darwinism: A family of evolutionary ideas associated with Darwin, especially natural selection and common descent. The term names the broader intellectual tradition built around Darwin’s work.
Pangenesis: Darwin’s proposed, incorrect model in which particles from body parts contribute to hereditary material. It was Darwin’s attempt to explain heredity before genes were understood.

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