Charles Darwin ENGLISH NATURALIST

GRADE 1001

12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882

Was an English naturalist and geologist, best known for his contributions to evolutionary theory. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors, and in a joint publication with Alfred Russel Wallace introduced his scientific theory that this branchin pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle fo existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding.

Social DarwinismThe use of natural laws as justification for moral or social choices is at the heart of the ethical problem of passing from being to ought to be. So when Thomas Malthus argued that population growth beyond resources was prepared by God for men to work productively and would refrain when forming families, their argument was used in the 1830s to justify the "workhouses" (workhouses) and economic laissez-faire.158 Similarly, some authors viewed social implications in the theory of evolution, and Herbert Spencer in his social static, written in 1851, based ideas of human freedom and individual rights in the evolutionary theory of Lamarck.

Criticism of the theory of evolution and controversyAlthough less controversial than the Vestiges, 118 the publication of The Origin of Species attracted wide international interest, causing heated debate in both the scientific and religious community that was reflected in the popular press. Origin was translated into several languages in a short time, becoming a fundamental scientific text whose discussion involved many social sectors, including the "workers" who flocked to the lectures of Huxley.119 Although his illness forced him to stay out of public debates, Darwin was always attentive to the reactions to his work, as illustrated in correspondence remained active in those fechas.120 in general, the acceptance of the thesis defended at Source pierced two stages: 121 a first phase in which, over the second half of the nineteenth century, the Victorian world began to gradually accept the theory of evolution and second, advanced and the twentieth century, in which the rediscovery of Mendelian inheritance enabled the acceptance of the theory of natural selection.