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John Edmonstone
John met Darwin at Edinburgh while teaching taxidermy. Darwin was beginning his first semester of medical school. I believe this interaction was pivotal in what we now know today as Darwinism and a significant driver in Darwin's future journeys. During this time and rarely putting effort towards advancing his medical career, Darwin spent countless hours listening to John's stories regarding the jungles and wildlife from his previous explorations. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhbiPAJtyYo -
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HMS Beagle
Although his family (and stomach) opposed, Darwin worked as Naturalist for the Beagle in what would become over 40,000 mi. encompassing thousands of specimens driving Darwin closer to his final theory. This voyage also enlightened Darwin in aspects of geology, botany, and his most powerful idea, natural selection. This witnessing of so many diverse creatures, and as they react to their environment was something that only total immersion could offer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOcQiljuTdg -
The Mockingbird Riddle
Not finches, but mockingbirds acting as the revelation to Darwin's evolutionary theories, and the flipping of a once strong foundation of beliefs. In examining mockingbirds in the Galapagos, similarities between those and ones found in South America brought new questions. Darwin wrote "If there is the slightest foundation for these remarks, the zoology of archipelagoes will be well worth examining; for such facts would undermine the stability of species." in a March 1837 notebook. -
Royal Geological Society Speech
After 5 years on the open sea, and compiling thousands of documents from multiple resources, Darwin conducted his first presentation at the Royal Geological Society in London. This speech referred to the rising land of South America and how the nearby animals have evolved to the changing conditions over time. Being contradictory to non-evolutionary theories previously presented by others, Darwin was unsure how this would be accepted. It went well and lead to a new Darwin motivation. -
Thomas Malthus
Thomas Malthus was a professor of history and political economy at the East India Company's college in Haileybury, Hertfordshire. He is included in this timeline as it is believed that his famous "Essay on the Principle of Population" was of direct inspiration to Darwin and assembling together the final pieces of natural selection. Darwin saw strong similarities between this economic theory and his own theory of evolution. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1ywppAJ1xs -
Darwin's narrative of the Beagle voyage
Although the original three-volume narrative of the Beagle voyage published May of 1839 was filled with detailed events from numerous sources, due to the lengthy and repetitive nature of the second and third volumes, the reception was not high. Darwin, however, published his own narrative 3 months later that sold to a much more engaged audience. This popularity expanded Darwin's name throughout scientific communities and solidified a path Darwin was eager to continue taking. -
First Transmutation Draft
While spending time in Shrewsbury to tend to his diminishing health, Darwin sketched out his first 35 page summary on transmutation. Still believing that God created man, Darwin began to document how it looks when "God" takes a step back from nature after day one and lets the environment take control. Decent and natural selection began to take root in Darwin's mind. This contributed to both supportive and conflicting ways many of the philosophical foundations of science were based on then. -
Traveling Seeds
Demonstrating his own revolutionary paradigm, Darwin aimed to prove that species could traverse from island to island contrary to popular belief, however did not believe that the "land bridge" idea was most feasible. After sticking to his guns and soaking seeds for 4 months in seawater, Darwin proved that healthy germination was still possible. This expanded to Darwin's confirmation with natives and sailors that floating land rafts had been spotted carrying various animals to far off locations. -
First Evolutionary Papers Published
With a highly inductive and casual process, papers were delivered to the Linnean Society in London. "The Variation of Organic Beings under Domestication and in their Natural State," and "On the Variation of Organic Beings in the State of Nature; on the Natural Means of Selection; on the Comparison of Domestic Races and true Species." An older abstract letter on species variation and the essay that Wallace wrote titled "On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart indefinitely from the Original Type." -
The Origin of Species
This book can be considered a blossoming flower to the age of enlightenment and spiny thorn to the age of theology, which still exists in a brutal arena today. As the cornerstone to evolutionary biology, Darwin's detailed analysis over years of passionate research developed cutting edge theories surrounding genealogy, decent, and the natural selections of species of extended periods of time. This controversial book has stood tests of time and brought new questions to proof and falsifiability. -
The Decent of Man
If the Origin of Species was the spark, the Decent of man was the fire. This addition to previously published, and already controversial theories of Darwin's evolutionary tree expanded wildly. Relating humans to apes and sexual selection were both revolutionary ways to look at the development and mating habits of humans as well as animals. This placed Darwin's science into the more subjective realm of clinical psychology creating new debates. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DJ8HRCEt-E
