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Charles Darwin - Living for Science

Born as the second youngest out of six children in Shrewsbury 1809, Charles Darwin and his entire family as well as the congregation he was born into were belonging to the Unitarian church - an ecclesia which believes in the unity of God, humans and nature. As a small boy he spent much of his leisure time outside in the nature observing and catching insects and plants as he began to gain interest in nature and its hidden secrets. Apart from that he soon got taught how to hunt as he learned from this older brother how to handle a riffle and shoot birds.

While nature was a great attraction to him he totally failed in school and he later wrote in a book that probably the best sort of education he had during his school career have been the secret chemical experiments with his brother which they performed in the greenhouse of the family’s residence in Shrewsbury. That way he got to know the meaning and importance of experimental science. When these hidden chemical experiments became known on the school yard he quickly received the nick name “Gas”. 

He was sent to a university in Edinburgh where he started studying medical studies. “A Moor” taught him how to stuff birds he wrote once in a letter to his parents. That black-coloured man taught him also how to dissect animals which he considered later one of his main parts of education that was important for his future career in natural science. Darwin was fascinated by the stories that man was telling him about his homeland and the tropics in general as this black man was a freed slave who was brought to the UK coming from Guyana by a British salesman who cultivated him to be a dissector. As Charles Darwin soon figured out that he was not able to see blood without tainting and vomiting he quit his career in medical studies at the age of 18 having a much broader interest in natural science and traveling than ever before.

That same year, 1827, his father sent Charles Darwin to the University of Cambridge where he was told to study theology. But the only thing he was continuing to study were bugs and insects which he began to focus on apart from botanics and geology before he finally completed his studies in theology after four years. His professor in botanics used to have quite good connections and because some other scientists refused the offer he suggested Charles Darwin to be a comrade for a circumnavigation of the globe starting in 1831 under the supervision of the captain of the ship “Biegel”, 26 year old Robert Fitzroy who was still looking for a scientifically educated gentlemen to assist him on this trip around the world. Although this voyage was originally set to take two years and the expeditions goal was to gauge the coast of Southern America, the trip took over five years and the result was a new point of view on the world and the human kind. According to Charles Darwin himself, this travel with the “Biegel” has been one of the most significant experiences he made over the years. Unfortunately he suffered from sea sickness the entire time being onbord. On the mainland then his expeditions granted him permission to sceneries he never saw before which delivered him material for his theories.

On the Cape Verde Islands he recognized a white line on the steep coast which was about 10 meters above sea level. When he was taking a closer look he realized it was limestone and shells. For him it was something unbelievable how these creatures got there above the sea and he drew the conclusion that something has moved which made him think that Earth was not as rigid as he and his fellow scientists previously believed but that Earth is rather a very dynamic planet. 

Then the appearance and disappearance of species - how could it be understood in a more practical way than using the huge bones he found on his expedition to Puna Alta in Argentina. When the ship continued to travel they were stopping on the Galapagos Islands.

Depending on the island the tortoises come from, he realized they had different pattern in their shell although it happened to be the same species but they were isolated from each other. Another discovery he made were the finches living on the islands of Galapagos. They are perfectly adapted to their islands environment and natural ressources. While the finches on one island have thinner beaks to easily peck insects out of the wood and therefore reproduce in higher rates to proceed their attributes to the next generations in order to survive, the finches on one other island of Galapagos have a much thicker beak that they can use perfectly in order to survive in their given environmental conditions. This principle Darwin soon called “Natural Selection”.

1836 he returned to England and just one year later he was manufacturing a sketch of the first “evolutionary tree” or “tree of life” underlining his imagination of evolution. He added the headline “I think” to the paper. But until he finally says or even publishes what he thought 23 years were passing by in which he feared to loose his reputation as a natural scientist in the Anglican public. Instead he was founding a family, his wife gave birth to 10 kids of which 3 died and he started to publish some selected results of his voyage and started proving himself as a natural scientist in order to indirectly prepare the academics and fellow scientists for the release of his studies. Secretly he kept writing on his theory of evolution and just before other scientists were about to unveil his discoveries, we published his theories in 1859.

Painting of Charles Darwin

“The Origin of Species” caused heavy discussions between the clergy and Darwins adherents and many people mocked his presumed affiliation of the human race with apes. When Darwin died in 1882 the scientific point of view had significantly changed and that continues until today.