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This article is about Charles Darwin's book. For the Outer Limits episode of the same
name, see Origin of Species (The Outer Limits).
Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species (published 24 November 1859) is a
seminal work in scientific literature and a landmark work in evolutionary biology.[1]
The book's full title is On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the
Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. In the 6th edition of 1872 the
title was changed to The Origin of Species.[2] It introduced the theory that populations
evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection. Darwin's
book contains a wealth of evidence that the diversity of life arose through a branching
pattern of evolution and common descent – evidence which he had accumulated on
the voyage of the Beagle in the 1830s and expanded through research,
correspondence, and experiments after his return.[3]
The book is readable even for the non-specialist and attracted widespread interest on
publication. The topic of evolution had been highly controversial during the first half
of the 19th century, since transmutation of species contradicted the long accepted idea
that species were unchanging parts of a designed hierarchy. It had been the subject of
political and theological debates, with competing ideas of biology trying to explain
new findings. Support for evolutionary ideas was already growing among a new
generation of professional anatomists and the general public, but to a scientific
establishment closely tied to the Church of England, science was part of natural
theology. An older generation of naturalists found it very hard to accept that humans
descended from animals.
The mass of evidence presented by a scientist of Darwin's eminence generated
respectful discussion on scientific, philosophical, and religious grounds. The debate
over the book would lead to widespread acceptance among educated people that
evolution had occurred, and contributed significantly to the movement to
professionalize British science by replacing natural theology with methodological
naturalism and ending the Church's domination of the scientific community. The
scientific theory of evolution has continued to evolve since Darwin's contributions,
but natural selection remains the most widely accepted scientific explanation for the
development of new species. Despite the overwhelming scientific consensus, political
and religious challenges to the theory of evolution continue to this day in some
countries.
Charles Robert Darwin FRS (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English
naturalist[I] who realised and presented compelling evidence that all species of life
have evolved over time from common ancestors, through the process he called natural
selection. The fact that evolution occurs became accepted by the scientific community
and much of the general public in his lifetime, while his theory of natural selection
came to be widely seen as the primary explanation of the process of evolution in the
1930s,[1] and now forms the basis of modern evolutionary theory. In modified form,
Darwin’s scientific discovery is the unifying theory of the life sciences, providing
logical explanation for the diversity of life.[2]