Origin Of Species By Means Of Natural Selection

Darwin is one of the most well known scientists to date. Darwin’s book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection was highly controversial and not widely accepted. The ideas Darwin wrote about in his book had never been heard before and went completely against the church. Darwin said that all species on the Earth originated from one common ancestor. Then as time went on, that one species adapted differently based on the environment they were in. This kept happening until they became completely different species. He also said that if a species doesn’t adapt to its environment it will die and the species that were the best adapted will survive and reproduce. He called this natural selection.

As previously stated, Darwin’s ideas
weren’t very accepted when they first came out. One of the biggest haters of the ideas was the church. Even before publishing his ideas, the church tried to scare him into stopping his research. The church made Darwin think that if he published his ideas that they would kill him. Darwin was so certain that he would be killed, he told his wife she must publish his work if something is to happen to him. There were many people and events that influenced Darwin on his path to publishing his findings. For example, when Darwin went on the Beagle to the Galapagos. While here Darwin got to research on all the different finches. Even though these birds lived very close to one another they all had very different adaptations. Darwin was able to use the finches as one of his key supporting arguments for his theory. Also, Darwin's brother was very influential in Darwin's journey. Whenever Darwin was wanting to stop his research because he was too scared of the church, his brother was always there to keep motivating him. New geological ideas also gave Darwin’s idea a better chance of being accepted because a lot of their ideas were against the church too, but they were still accepted so Darwin’s ideas could be too.