Charles Darwin is the biologist who essentially founded the science of evolution with the publication of his exhaustive and controversial tomes, The Origin of Species, in 1859, and in 1871, The Descent of Man. Published to vitriolic attack for their seeming denial of the existence of an Almighty Creator, the works stir controversy even today, over a century and a half later. Charles Darwin undertook a five year voyage on HMS Beagle, and his observations and collections of species led him to the theorization of all life forms having been descended from common ancestors (including apes), and that natural selection decided which would live and which would die out. Not a popular dish to put before the Victorian public of his time, as he suspected and was to find out. No matter that we are still debating his “theories†this much later – all things being equal, and with no disrespect to Mr. Darwin, he and the redoubtable Mrs. D. contributed to the species by ten of their own – no small contribution!
