(The theory of evolution is a shortened form of the term “theory of evolution by natural

selection,” which was proposed by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in the nineteenth
century.
Natural selection was such a powerful idea in explaining the evolution of life that it became
established as a scientific theory. Biologists have since observed numerous examples of natural
selection influencing evolution. Today, it is known to be just one of several mechanisms by
which life evolves. For example, a phenomenon known as genetic drift can also cause species
to evolve. In genetic drift, some organisms—purely by chance—produce more offspring than
would be expected. Those organisms are not necessarily the fittest of their species, but it is their
genes that get passed on to the next generation.)
A theory is an idea about how something in nature works that have gone through rigorous
testing through observations and experiments designed to prove the idea right or wrong. When
it comes to the evolution of life, various philosophers and scientists, including an
eighteenth-century English doctor named Erasmus Darwin, proposed different aspects of what
later would become an evolutionary theory. But evolution did not reach the status of being a
scientific theory until Darwin’s grandson worked on it, the more famous Charles Darwin.
Charles Darwin, was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist. He was born on Feb. 12,
1809, in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England, and died on April 19, 1882, in Downe, Kent. He was
recommended as a naturalist on HMS Beagle, which was bound on a long scientific survey
expedition to South America and the South Seas (1831–36).
His zoological and geological discoveries on the voyage resulted in numerous important
publications and formed the basis of his theories of evolution. Seeing competition between
individuals of a single species, he recognized that within a local population the individual bird,
for example, with the sharper beak might have a better chance to survive and reproduce and
that if such traits were passed on to new generations, they would be predominant in future
populations. He saw this natural selection as the mechanism by which those that are better
physically equipped to survive, grow to maturity, and reproduce. Those that are lacking in such
fitness, on the other hand, either do not reach an age when they can reproduce or produce
fewer offspring than their counterparts. Natural selection is sometimes summed up as “survival
of the fittest” because the “fittest” organisms—those most suited to their environment—are the
ones that reproduce most successfully, and are most likely to pass on their traits to the next
generation. And those with less advantageous traits gradually disappear.
He worked on his theory for more than 20 years before publishing it in his famous book “On the
Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection” (1859). The book was immediately in great
demand, and Darwin’s intensely controversial theory was accepted quickly in most scientific
circles; most opposition came from religious leaders. Though Darwin’s ideas were modified by
later developments in genetics and molecular biology, his work remains central to modern
evolutionary theory.
Sources:
1. National Geographic Society. “Theory of Evolution.” National Geographic Society,
7 June 2019, www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/theory-evolution/.
2. “Charles Darwin | Biography, Education, Books, Theory of Evolution, & Facts |
Britannica.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 2022,
www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Darwin.