TIME
7:00 AM
Biggest single idea in the History of Thought
"The Origin of Species"
Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species" first published in 1859,has been called the biggest single idea in the history of Thought.Origin of Species is considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology. Its full title was On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.
Darwin's theory of evolution is based on key facts and the inferences drawn from them, which biologist Ernst Mayr summarised as follows:
- Every species is fertile enough that if all offspring survived to reproduce the population would grow (fact).
- Despite periodic fluctuations, populations remain roughly the same size (fact).
- Resources such as food are limited and are relatively stable over time (fact) Individuals in a population vary significantly from one another (fact).
- Much of this variation is inheritable (fact).
- Individuals less suited to the environment are less likely to survive and less likely to reproduce; individuals more suited to the environment are more likely to survive and more likely to reproduce and leave their inheritable traits to future generations, which produces the process of natural selection (inference).
- This slowly effected process results in populations changing to adapt to their environments, and ultimately, these variations accumulate over time to form new species (inference)
Even though this book agitated the christian world because the theory of Evolution stands against the teachings of Holy Bibal, he was considered as a honourable person and after his death he was buried with full christian honours in Westminster Abbey.
