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==General Biography of Charles Darwin==

==General Biography of Charles Darwin==

Charles Darwin was born in [[Shrewsbury]], [[England]] in 1809 to his parents Dr. Robert Darwin and Susannah Wedgewood. Darwin's mother was a religious woman but his father was, for the most part, a weak deist. Despite his lack of theistic religious belief, the Darwin's father allowed Charles to be baptized into the Anglican Church and encouraged him to become a clergyman. Darwin's mother died in 1817. In 1825 Charles Darwin went on to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh. There, he became horrified with the brutality of surgery before anesthesia was invented and quit his medical studies.  

Charles Robert Darwin FRS (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist.[I] He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.

In 1831 Charles Darwin graduated from Christ's College at Cambridge with a BA degree in the classics and theology. On December 27 of the same year Charles Darwin departed on the ''HMS Beagle'' for a five year voyage of exploration. The ''Beagle'' returned to English shores on October 2 1836. In 1837, Charles Darwin drew his now famous depiction of [[common ancestry]] in the form of a branching tree.<ref>Charles Darwin, Transmutation Notebook B 1837:36</ref> The following year he discovered the concept of ''[[natural selection]].'' Darwin insists that naturally occurring phenomena and factors working together in blind tandem have produced nature and eventually mankind.

He published his theory with compelling evidence for evolution in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species.[1][2] The scientific community and much of the general public came to accept evolution as a fact in his lifetime.[3] However, it was not until the emergence of the modern evolutionary synthesis from the 1930s to the 1950s that a broad consensus developed that natural selection was the basic mechanism of evolution.[4] In modified form, Darwin's scientific discovery is the unifying theory of the life sciences, explaining the diversity of life.[5][6]

However, Charles Darwin originally based the idea of human evolution on a racist assumption<ref>Milton, Richard ''Shattering the Myths of Darwinism'' 1997:186,287 says "Darwin [was] openly racist"</ref>, [after God was rejected as Creator], made in the late 1830s<ref>Barlow, Nora (editor) ''The Autobiography of Charles Darwin'' 1958:130</ref>, that Fuegians (natives of Tierra del Fuego) resembled primates that he had observed in the London zoo.<ref>Larson, Edward J. ''Evolution: The Remarkable History Of A Scientific Theory'' 2004:66,67</ref>  In 1842 he wrote out a ''sketch'' of his theory but did not publish it. Again, in 1844 Charles Darwin produced what is known today as an ''essay'' of the same theory more developed but he still chose not to publish.  

Darwin's early interest in nature led him to neglect his medical education at the University of Edinburgh; instead, he helped to investigate marine invertebrates. Studies at the University of Cambridge encouraged his passion for natural science.[7] His five-year voyage on HMS Beagle established him as an eminent geologist whose observations and theories supported Charles Lyell's uniformitarian ideas, and publication of his journal of the voyage made him famous as a popular author.[8]

Finally, in 1859, Charles Darwin published his famous theory about how the species may have been produced without any aid from a Divine Creator. He titled his book ''On [[The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection]], or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life''. In 1871, well after his theory enjoyed widespread success, Darwin published his ideas on human evolution in a two-volume book titled ''[[The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex]].'' On his deathbed, Darwin admitted that the idea of a human eye evolving out of nothing was absurd, and he repented and apparently died as a Christian.

Puzzled by the geographical distribution of wildlife and fossils he collected on the voyage, Darwin investigated the transmutation of species and conceived his theory of natural selection in 1838.[9] Although he discussed his ideas with several naturalists, he needed time for extensive research and his geological work had priority.[10] He was writing up his theory in 1858 when Alfred Russel Wallace sent him an essay which described the same idea, prompting immediate joint publication of both of their theories.[11] Darwin's work established evolutionary descent with modification as the dominant scientific explanation of diversification in nature.[3] In 1871, he examined human evolution and sexual selection in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, followed by The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. His research on plants was published in a series of books, and in his final book, he examined earthworms and their effect on soil.[12]

 

In recognition of Darwin's pre-eminence as a scientist, he was one of only five nineteenth-century non-royal personages from the United Kingdom to be honoured by a state funeral,[13] and was buried in Westminster Abbey, close to John Herschel and Isaac Newton.[14]

==Religious Views of Charles Darwin==

==Religious Views of Charles Darwin==