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Charles Darwin Biographical Information
Darwin’s Voyage text pp. 297-301
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1. What was Charles Darwin’s birth date? Death?
12 Feb 1809 - 19 April 1882
2. What was the name of the British naval ship that Darwin traveled on?
3. How long was the trip?
HMS Beagle
5 years (1831-1836)
4. How old was Darwin at the time of his travels?
5. What was Darwin’s function on the voyage?
22 years old
Ship’s naturalist & dinner companion
6. What was Darwin’s educational background? (hint: he had two potential careers in mind)
Medicine – University of Edinburg
Theology - Cambridge
7. One of Darwin’s influences Georges Cuvier. Who was Cuvier and what did he propose?
Georges Cuvier (1769-1832) was a French anatomist who was an expert in fossils. Cuvier established
extinctions as a fact and suggested that species went extinct in great catastrophes (“catastrophism”.,
For example, the cooling of the planet occasionally triggered violent, sudden uplifts of mountains and
volcanic eruptions. This was later verified to some degree by evidence of the 5 major Mass Extinction
events. http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/history_08
8. Another of Darwin’s influences was Charles Lyell, a geologist. Who was Lyell and what did he
propose?
A British lawyer-turned-geologist named Charles Lyell (1797-1875) suggested that the earth was
“vastly old” and the Earth was transformed not by unimaginable catastrophes but by imperceptibly
slow, gradual changes, many of which we can see around us today. Rain erodes mountains, while
molten rock pushes up to create new ones. The eroded sediments form into layers of rock, which can
later be lifted above sea level, tilted by the force of the uprising rock, and eroded away again. These
changes are tiny, but with enough time they could produce vast changes.
Just as the planet's geology changed gradually, so did its species become extinct gradually as new
species were formed.
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/history_12
9. Define “uniformitarianism”
Lyell's version of geology came to be known as uniformitarianism, because of his fierce insistence
that the processes that alter the Earth are uniform through time. Only slow-acting processes such as
sediment deposition and erosion have been agents of geological change, not sudden dramatic
catastrophes. Lyell viewed the history of Earth as being vast and directionless and cyclical. And the
history of life was no different.
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Charles Darwin Biographical Information
10. From his reading and his own observations, what did Darwin come to believe about the age of the
Earth?
At the time of Darwin and Wallace, most people believed that the age of Earth was about 6,000 years,
as estimated by Bishop Ussher in the seventeenth century from his reading of the Bible.
In the first edition of On the Origin of the Species, Darwin made a crude estimate of Earth’s age, based
on geology, of several hundred million years. This, he suspected, was sufficiently long for the
processes of natural selection to take place and produce the wide range of species on Earth.
http://www.csicop.org/sb/show/darwinism_and_the_age_of_earth
11. In 1835 Darwin reached the Galapagos archipelago (chain of islands), which is located where (be
as specific as possible)?
~600 miles off the west coast of Ecuador (S. America), in the middle of the Pacific Ocean
12. From what substance were the Galapagos islands formed? Why are they considered “young”
islands?
Volcanic lava, which only bubbled up from the sea floor about 4 to 5 million years ago, long after the
mainland of South America was already established.
13. When the islands originally formed, they were uninhabited, yet by the time Darwin arrived there,
the islands had abundant plant and animal life. How did the organisms get there?
Swimming, flying, stranded, blown-off course in a storm, floating, “rafting” from mainland. Mostly
“castaways”
14. Why are the Galapagos animals so trusting of humans?
No human exposure, no fear of predators
15. To what animal does the word “galapagos” refer to in Spanish?
Giant “saddleback” tortoises
16. Where else did Darwin travel besides the Galapagos? List some specific places.
Argentina, Madagascar, Chile (Andes), New Zealand, Tasmania, Australia, Tahiti…etc
17. Why was Darwin reluctant to publish his theory of natural selection? He was aware of the
religious/political controversy it might provoke
What finally made him publish it, in the end? He was worried that Alfred Russel Wallace would write
and publish before him.
18. What was the title of Charles Darwin’s most famous book, which detailed his theory of how
evolution occurs? When did he finally publish it? 1859; On the Origin Species by Means of Natural
Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Existence
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