Darwin's Impact

Very possibly no other author in the nineteenth century influenced human thought all around the world more than Charles Darwin when he published his The Origin of Species. Even though there were many views of evolution that were proposed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, for example Lamarck and Cuvier of France, it was Darwin's theory of natural selection that was eventually accepted as how nature runs its course. Darwin's theory that natural selection is …

…the vices associated with the poorer inferior classes. <Tab/> It took Darwin many years and numerous pieces of evidence to come up with his theory of natural selection, but he clearly and logically presented the idea that natural selection is the mechanism of evolution. And even though it did not come with overnight universal acceptance, the publication of Darwin's book The Origin of Species in 1859 changed biology, religion, and society forever.