Today I finally have some time to write about great and inspiring people from the past again. I already wrote a post about Nikola Tesla to which I received great feedback, so I couldnt wait to get the opportunity to write anothe post in the Mind Ahead of Time series.
To start this post I present to you an image of Charles Darwin as he is envisioned by artists - in thought! I decided to talk about him because he was the driving force behind the revolution of how we think about ourselves and the Nature that sorrounds us, despite great opposition from the general public. A trully great mind!
Early Years
Charles Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England on 12th of February 1809. He was born into a wealthy and influential family that had deep roots in the religious circles of the Unitarianism that was spreading in the 18th and 19th century. His father was a free thinker despite his religous upbringing, and he consistenly encouraged Charles to think with his own head and to adopt practices that were common in scientific circles. He helped his father as a medical assistent before moving on to the University of Edinburgh Medical School which was at the time the best medical school in the UK.
He quickly got bored with the courses in the medicinal field which forced his father to move him to other more theologicaly oriented studies. He sought more activities to occupy him during his studies so he started to collect beetleswith his cousin. He even proposed some articles in the Illustrations of British entomology.
One of the beetles Darwin found in Argentina during his voyages.
He continued to be very interested in Natural history. Most of the articles on this topic were looking on this topic through the eyes of Theology, which meant his future views were even more radicle!
Journey Around the World
Because of his potential during his studies of Natural History he was invited onto the HMS Beagle which was a ship that was designated with charting the coast of South America and studying its geology and flora and fauna. Despite his seasickness Charles made many notes on the 5 year journey around the globe, particulary his field of expertice of geology, beetles and marine invertebrates. During their stop in Patagonia he found a fossil of a large mammal that indicated to an extinction event in recent history (in geological time).
Meeting all kinds of people, ranging from civilized savages to man-eating humans, he no longer believed that humans are very different from animals when it comes to their origins. Also he believed all humans shared the same origin, which was wildly different than most of his peers. This was also apparent in his dislike of slavery.
During his voyage to the Galapagos Islands and Australia, he was sure, that if a Creator was at work creating all the different species, all the different but similar wildlife must be the work of at least two such beings, which in his mind did not make much sense. This started his line of thinking in the realm of evolution.
Theory of Evolution
Many findings he saw only glimpses of, crystallized after he arrived home where he was received as a renowned scientists, because of his letters from the expedition of the geological findings in South America.
Many fellow scientists also dissected the mass of fossils he found during the voyage. They found evidence of many species like the giant sloth, giant capibara and a rodent the size of a hippopothamus named Toxodon.
Also the various birds he noticed on the Galapagos Islands, that all resembled the mockingbird, were actually all different species that originated from separate volcanic islands and which evolved from one another - the so-called Darwin's finches.
This led him to propose his theory on Natural selection and later the Theory of Evolution in his book named On the Origin of Species in 1859, which was more than 20 years after he came back to England in 1836. This only tells us the opposition he faced from traditional thinking of people around him, but also himself. We must realise that at the time such a theory was something completely unheard of.
This kind of thinking that was way ahead of the contemporary Western culture makes Darwin a man with a mind ahead of his time.
To improve the flow of the post I cite the sources of the pictures here.
First picture - Link
Second picture - Link
Third picture - Link
Fourth picture - Link
Fifth picture - Link
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