Biography

The English physicist Charles Darwin was born in 1809. He studied medicines and theology.
After he graduated, Darwin began a long journey to South America on the ship ‘Beagle’. His finding during this trip led to the development of his theory of evolution. His most know book is ‘On the Origin of Species’, in which he describes the evolution of life on earth. This theory was controversial, because it did not match the ideas of the church about the origin of the earth. Though it is still considered to be one of the most important theories in modern science.
In 1882 Darwin died and was buried in England.

Theory

According to the theory of evolution every organism is created by evolution. Animals and plants are developed from antecedent organisms.
Every kind of organism has his own characteristics, every member of a certain group organisms posses a variation of these qualities. For example: every human being has two eyes, but some have blue eyes and some have brown eyes. Organisms can change in time because of natural selection. The environment influences the change of survival for every kind of member of a certain species. The strongest members of each kind will survive and have the change to pass their genes (and their characteristics) on to their offspring. This process repeats itself for every generation. Another example to make this process clear. A certain kind of ducks includes two kinds of members: one that can only swim and another that can swim and fly. Because they live in a hazardous environment it is important to have good flee-qualities. Unfortunately the ducks that can’t fly are to slow, so other animals eat them. The ducks that survived can reproduce. So only their genes are past on. In this way eventually there will only be duck left that can swim and also fly.
Certain characteristics are lost and others are conserved or even evolved. Spencer would adapt this theory for social processes, which he called ‘survival of the fittest’.

Research and experiments

During the cruise with the ‘Beagle’ Darwin visited the Galapagos Islands near South America. Here he studied the variation between the finches on the islands. The birds lived isolated there, which made this study possible. Darwin noticed that some finches possessed a certain characteristic, but kind on a different island did not. For example: the finches on the island were the only hard kind of food exists, like nuts and seeds, the birds had developed pointed beaks. Whereas on the island with softer kind of foods, like berries and other fruit the finches had dull beaks. Darwin found must more variation of characteristics. The birds that started out all looking the same had developed in time.
The finches adapted to the difference environments on the islands. Because of this adaptation and because of the isolating, the finches could evolve. Only the combinations of genes that were proven to the strongest survived and had a change to be past on to following generations. In this way specific characteristics only could exits on island and not on another.