Darwin and Evolution

Key: AWL to Study, Low-frequency Vocabulary

Who is Charles Darwin? What is evolution?

 1831–1836: Voyage of
•
Exploration
Darwin traveled on the Beagle.
 knew the Earth was very old
 knew fossils represented extinct species
 knew living organisms were related in groups

Where did Darwin travel on his voyage of exploration?

 Ambitious Naturalist
• Darwin knew that whoever solved the problem of how
new species originated would become famous.

Would you like to explore the natural world like Darwin?

Explain.
 Darwin’s Journal: 1838
• Natural selection is a process.
 Traits that enhance survival become progressively more
common in successive generations.
 These animals reproduce more.
 These traits become more pronounced.

How does natural selection work to form a new species?

 Discoveries
• Process of natural selection explains the origin of
adaptation.
 When adaptations are
combined with
geographical separation,
this could explain the
origin of species.

How does natural selection explain the origin of

adaptation?
 A Controversial Idea
• Darwin feared enormous
consequences.
 did not publish for 20 years
 gathered additional evidence

Why was Darwin’s idea controversial?

 Bombshell
• A letter from Wallace
 Wallace also had the idea of natural selection.

If you were Darwin, what would you have done after

receiving Wallace’s letter?
 Darwin’s Reaction: Despair
• He thought the honorable course of action would be
to let Wallace publish alone.
• Prominent friends encouraged Darwin to arrange for a
joint publication.
• Darwin and Wallace
published back-to-back
papers in 1858.

What might have happened if Darwin hadn’t

published at this time?
 Working Rapidly
• 1859: Darwin rushed to press with a book.
 assembling materials, summarizing evidence and making
interpretations
 Darwin publishes The Origin of Species by Means of Natural
Selection.
 The first print run of the
book sells out on the
first day.

Why do you think the book sold out?

 A Sensation
• The most controversial implication:
 Humans descended from apes.
• The book also explained the astonishing diversity and
precise adaptation of living things.

Why do you think the book was thought to be so

controversial?
 Darwin’s Words
• To contemplate a tangled bank…
 plants of many kinds
 birds singing in the bushes
 insects flitting about
 worms crawling around

Do you like to contemplate nature? Why or why not?

 Darwin Reflects
• Elaborately constructed forms, different from and
dependent upon each other in so complex a manner,
are produced by laws.
 Endless forms have been and are being evolved.

Explain how certain laws have created the diversity of

species.