Charles Darwin

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Term Paper Title	Charles Darwin
# of Words	765
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	3.06

Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin

     Charles Robert Darwin was a British scientist who laid the foundation of
modern evolutionary theory with his views on life development through natural
selection.  He was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England, on February 12, 1809.
     After graduating from the elite school at Shrewsbury in 1825, Darwin
attended the University of Edinburgh where he studied medicine. In 1827 he
dropped out and entered the University of Cambridge in preparation for becoming
a clergyman of the Church of England. While there, Darwin met two important
people in his life: Adam Sedgwick, a geologist, and John Stevens Henslow, a
naturalist. After graduating from Cambridge in 1831, the 22-year-old Darwin was
taken aboard the English survey ship HMS Beagle, mainly because of Henslow's
recommendation, as an unpaid naturalist on an expedition around the world.
     When the voyage began, Darwin didn't believe that species change through
time, but he did believe in two prevailing ideas of the time. The first theory
was that the earth was 6,000 years old and had remained unchanged except for the
effects of floods and other catastropes. The second was that organisms were
designed especially for certain habitats and appeared on the earth in their
present form.
     After reading the works of a noted geologist, Darwin began to change his
ideas. He saw evidence that the earth was much older than 6,000 years. In South
America, he was witness to an earthquake that lifted the land several feet. He
realized that mountains could be built by the action of an earthquake over
millions of years. He found fossils of marine mammals high up on mountains, and
realized that rocks must have been lifted from the ocean.
     Darwin also studied plants and animals. On the Galapagos Islands, he
found animals that resembled animals on the South American continent, but not
exactly the same. He understood that they must have come to the islands from the
mainland, and then adapted into new species. He also observed the plant and
animal life of South America, oceanic islands, and the Far East. He noted many
examples that proved that animals in similar environments didn't always look the
same. For example, the emus of Australia and the rheas of South America are two
very distinct species, but they live in the same basic kind of habitat. Darwin
thought about this, and asked himself the question, if animals were formed for a
specific habitat, why would different species be found in ha...

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