Charles Robert Darwin is an English naturalist whose scientific theory of evolution by natural selection became the foundation of modern evolutionary studies.
Darwin came from a long line of scientists: His father, Dr. R.W. Darwin, was a medical doctor, and his grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, was a renowned botanist.
Darwin’s father hoped he would follow in his footsteps and become a medical doctor, but the sight of blood made Darwin queasy.
Darwin at first shocked religious Victorian society by suggesting that animals and humans shared a common ancestry.
His nonreligious biology appealed to the rising class of professional scientists, and by the time of his death evolutionary imagery had spread through all of science, literature, and politics.
Darwin, himself an agnostic, was accorded the ultimate British accolade of burial in Westminster Abbey, London.
