Darwin's basic ideas. Evolutionary teaching

The term "evolution" (from Lat. evolutio- deployment) was introduced into science in the middle of the 18th century. Swiss zoologist Charles Bonnet.

Biological evolution is a progressive, directed historical process of change in living organisms and their communities. The course of evolution is irreversible.

Questions of the origin and diversity of the organic world have always worried humanity. As already noted, the Middle Ages were dominated by creationism - the idea that living organisms are created by God and do not change over time. By the end of the 18th century. discoveries in the fields of chemistry, physics and biology strengthened the idea of ​​the unity of the origin of living organisms and the evolution of the organic world. This became the basis for the creation of a unified evolutionary theory, which was developed by the great English scientist Charles Darwin.

At the turn of the XVIII-XIX centuries. A lot of scientific prerequisites for the creation of evolutionary theory have accumulated. The idea of ​​the variability of the Earth's surface under the influence of climatic factors was substantiated. Chemists have proven that all living organisms consist of the same chemical elements that exist in inanimate nature. Biologists have found that the law of conservation of energy also applies to living organisms. The creation of evolutionary theory was largely influenced by the work of the English economists A. Smith and T. Malthus. A. Smith created the doctrine of free competition in industry. T. Malthus first introduced the expression “struggle for existence.” He explained that humans, like all other organisms, have a natural desire for limitless reproduction. But only the lack of vital resources, the production of which does not keep pace with reproduction, limits the growth of humankind.

At the beginning of the 19th century. French naturalist J.B. Lamarck was the first to propose a consistent doctrine of the development of living nature. Lamarck was the first to point out the connection between organisms and their environment. It was the habitat, in his opinion, that caused the changes in living organisms. The scientist defined the direction of evolution as a gradual transition of living organisms from lower to higher forms. But at the same time, Lamarck failed to reveal the true reasons contributing to this evolutionary transition.

In addition to scientific discoveries, the socio-economic situation significantly contributed to the formation of the theory of evolution - by the beginning of the 19th century. England became a major industrial and colonial power. The development of navigation, trade, and the development of colonies contributed to the accumulation of knowledge about the flora and fauna different countries. Scaling up industrial production and urban population growth have increased the demand for agricultural raw materials and food. This was an incentive to develop more productive varieties cultivated plants and highly productive breeds of domestic animals.

The formation of Charles Darwin's evolutionary views

Darwin was born in 1809 into the family of an English doctor. From childhood, Darwin developed a love for nature and field research. Studying at the universities of Edinburgh and Cambridge gave him a deep knowledge of zoology, botany and geology. Darwin studied the evolutionary views of Lamarck and other earlier evolutionists well, but did not share them.

Darwin, while studying the animal and plant world, was very interested in discovering fossil remains of animals. The similarity of these finds with modern forms led him to think about the possible relationship of these organisms. This allowed Darwin to propose continuity between modern and extinct forms of living organisms.

In 1831, Darwin, as a naturalist, set off on the sailing ship Beagle on a circumnavigation of the world (Fig. 40). For five years, the young scientist studied the geological structure of the continents, flora and fauna of the countries of the world. Darwin drew attention to the peculiarities of the geographical distribution of animals across the continents. For example, in the fauna of South America he discovered forms that were not observed in North America (sloths, anteaters, armadillos). He explained this fact by the isolation of the fauna caused by the presence of water barriers between the two continents.

During round the world expedition Darwin visited the Galapagos Islands, located off the west coast of South America. There, the scientist discovered species of song passerine birds - finches, which differed from each other in the shape of their beaks and the type of food. At the same time, the island finches were very similar to the mainland species, which undoubtedly indicated their close relationship.

The beaks of some species of finches were ideal for collecting seeds, while others were adapted only for collecting insects. Moreover, all the finches on the islands were generally quite similar. Darwin suggested that birds of the same species of finches once flew to the islands, and having settled, they adapted to local conditions. An advantage in survival was given to species whose beaks were more suitable for obtaining the food available on the islands. Some finches got the role of hunters of small insects, others received an abundance of fruits and seeds. As a result, several various types these birds that specialize in a particular type of food.

As a result, at the end of the expedition, based on extensive factual material, Darwin made important conclusions. Firstly, he confirmed that species are capable of changing and giving rise to new species. Secondly, based on an independent study of fossil remains and previously known data from paleontological research, the scientist proved the similarity in the structure of extinct and modern animals.

Basic principles of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution

After returning to England, Darwin began painstaking work on creating an evolutionary theory. Studying the works of Smith and Malthus, he tried to find similar phenomena in nature. As you know, the ability to reproduce unlimitedly is one of the main properties of living things. For example, many herring fish annually lay up to 100 thousand eggs, and cod - up to 6 million. But only a small part of the offspring survives. Darwin laid this discrepancy between the number of organisms born and those reaching sexual maturity as the basis for his doctrine of struggle for existence. He also pointed out that organisms have variability- individual differences in characters between individuals of the same species. Darwin first published the results of his research in 1859 in the book “The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.”

Basic principles of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution:

1. Species of living organisms had a single origin and were progressively transformed and improved in accordance with environmental conditions.
2. The transformation of species occurs on the basis of heredity and variability of living organisms and natural selection constantly occurring in nature.
3. Natural selection in nature is carried out on the basis of the relationships of organisms with each other, and with unfavorable conditions environment. These relationships represent a struggle for existence.
4. The result of natural selection is the emergence of fitness and, on this basis, the diversity of species of living organisms in nature.

Having analyzed the main provisions of evolutionary theory, we can conclude that, from Darwin’s point of view, the smallest evolving unit is elementary unit of evolution is the view. Prerequisites for evolution, creating material for selection in the form of hereditarily fixed differences among individuals, serve heredity and variability organisms. Driving forces of evolution leading to the formation of new species are struggle for existence And natural selection.

In the book “The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection,” Charles Darwin proved that the prerequisites for evolution are heredity and variability of organisms. Natural selection and the struggle for existence are the main driving forces of evolution. The result of natural selection is the emergence of fitness and, on its basis, the diversity of species of living organisms in nature.

Samokhin Andrey 12/15/2014 at 16:58

Darwin's theory, which is already more than 150 years old, has quarreled more than one generation of scientists, religious leaders and simply believers. And others are not indifferent to Darwin’s theory: few people like to have a monkey as their ancestor. The most interesting thing is that Charles Darwin was quite calm about his theory, but his followers are still “on fire”.

On November 24, 1859, summarizing his observations of animals and plants obtained two decades earlier during a circumnavigation of the world on the Beagle, the English scientist Charles Robert Darwin published “The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Breeds in the Struggle for Life.” ". The book caused the effect of a bomb exploding.

Although Darwin himself called his theory a hypothesis until the end of his life and was never an extreme “Darwinist,” including never postulating the origin of man from apes, his students, led by Thomas Huxley, turned this theory into a quasi-religion directed against Christianity. The theory of “natural selection” and the affirmation of primates as the “ancestors” of humanity came in handy (together with the theory of Marx and later Freud) for forces aimed at the collapse of traditional religion, morality, and monarchy.

However, with an emphasized detachment from the extreme conclusions of “Darwinism,” the author of the theory in one of his letters called Huxley: “a kind and kind assistant in the spread of the gospel of the devil.” Joke? Maybe. But very unpleasant... By the way, fellow scientists nicknamed Huxley “Darwin’s bulldog.”

Being an agnostic and a deist, Charles Darwin himself always believed that God created the first living cell. After the publication of his famous work, the scientist, studying the perfection of the structure of the eye, admitted: “Thoughts about the eye cooled me to this theory ". According to some accounts, shortly before his death, Darwin came from deism to Christ, while greatly lamenting the inappropriate atheistic resonance of his hypothesis.

A century and a half after the death of the creator of the theory of evolution, not a single one accurately attributed to the “transitional evolutionary forms” has been found. In addition, genetics has proven that in nature, degeneration occurs at least as often as evolution. It has also been experimentally confirmed that the genetic apparatus does not allow a plant or animal to deviate far from the norm and still survive and produce healthy offspring for several generations. Already in the middle of the 20th century, a machine calculation of the probability of the random formation of a living cell from the “primary broth” gave a zero result. The latter concerns the so-called “spontaneous generation of life.”

The popularizer’s entertaining pictures also turned out to be deliberate fraud.Darwin's theoriesErnst Haeckel on the development of the fetus in the womb “from fish through reptiles to man.” By the way, they can still be found in school biology textbooks. And this, despite the fact that after admitting to scientific fraud, Haeckel had to resign from the professorship at the University of Jena!

Today, despite a fair number of inconsistencies revealed by science, Darwin’s theory in a modified form of the “synthetic theory of evolution” (STE) has many supporters not only in the scientific world. Recently, for example, Pope Francis himself, speaking at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, solemnly acknowledged the “correctness” of Darwin’s theory.

However, criticism of the postulates of Darwin's theory does not stop. Among skeptic-rationalists there are many serious scientists who criticize evolutionary theory for scientific “extensions” and gaping gaps. There is another category of opponents of Darwin's theory - believing creationists speaking in the "field" of science. They are trying to find strictly scientific confirmation of the biblical "Book of Genesis". But by bringing to light the factual contradictions of Darwin's theory, creationists themselves often allow crude pseudoscientific exaggerations and fantasies, failing to explain many facts “strictly according to the Bible.”

Today among the clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church there are both convinced creationists and “theistic evolutionists.” The latter try to combine evolutionary theory with the provisions of the Bible, insisting on the inappropriateness of a literal reading of the Book of Books. Most often these are priests with a biological education. The site talked with one of them, Archpriest Alexander Borisov, rector of the Church of Saints Cosmas and Damian on Stoleshnikov Lane, a candidate of biological sciences on the topic of Darwinism.

"Darwin's theory and the idea of ​​evolution itself is attractive, says Father Alexander. - Firstly, because it provides a simple and consistent explanation for the diversity of the animal and plant world. Secondly, because this explanation is correct, although, of course, not in everything."

In support of comprehensive evolution, he gives arguments: the human body undergoes evolution from the egg, and there is a steady development of human knowledge and skills. At the same time, he somewhat paradoxically transfers evolutionism to the spiritual sphere: man, unlike animals, is characterized by limitless evolution towards an increasingly spiritually perfect being: after all, God became man so that man could become god. However, the question arises: is this fundamental Christian truth compatible with the Darwinian mechanism of “natural selection”?

Father Alexander Borisov says: “I know that many believers are afraid of Darwinism, while others, non-believers, use it to justify their atheism. Both go back to the misconception that if some veil has been removed from a long-standing secret, and it has received a rational explanation , then it means there is no God."

“The way some contemporaries and descendants wanted to use his scientific findings is not Darwin’s fault, - says Fr. Alexander. - Those who wanted to promote atheism did the same with the discovery of heliocentricity solar system. The reason for belief or disbelief, especially in our time, does not depend on the level of education. Atheism originated in Ancient Greece when science was in its infancy. And today there are many great scientists who are convinced Christians. Such was, for example, our famous biologist Nikolai Vladimirovich Timofeev-Resovsky, with whom I was well acquainted. No matter what secrets of nature science reveals, the reasons for the appearance of the world, the origin of life, and the emergence of Homo sapiens remain a Mystery.

The classical one is based on three pillars: mutation, isolation, natural selection, reminds the priest-biologist, adding “and these factors really act.” At the same time, he admits that science has now firmly proven: “random mutations alone are not enough for evolution; the speed and “quality” of some changes were clearly caused by directed mutations.”

I’m wondering: does it mean that the hand of God intervenes in this process every time?

“No,” the priest retorts, “the property of matter itself is directed by the Creator to perfection. The Bible testifies that God reveals himself to man and can intervene in his destiny,” Father Alexander continues. “According to Lomonosov, God gave man two Books: Nature and the Bible.” In one he showed His greatness, in the other - His Will."

Next Fr. Alexander Borisov sets out the credo of theological evolutionists: “The Biblical “Six Days” can be called the “first evolutionary book”, since it talks about the successive stages of creation and development: earth, water, plants, fauna, man... The Creator, as it were, gives the initiative to each environment to produce a more perfect one."

The question is on the tip of your tongue: “What about the fourth day of Creation? After all, on this day, according to the Bible, the Lord created The sun, moon and stars, and on the previous day - plants. How did they live without the Sun? But I don’t have time to formulate it.

“I don’t think that we need to read the Bible literally,” Father Alexander is ahead of me. “This also applies to the legend of the Flood, which certainly happened in earthly history, but did not completely wash away all living things; this also applies to the original “perfection " living beings and to the biblical timeline of "one day of creation". If this were so, we would not find numerous fossilized remains of animals and plants that went extinct millions of years ago.

We should not forget that the book of Genesis was revealed to Moses in accordance with the level of training of poorly educated nomads, such as his fellow tribesmen were then. Therefore, there is no need to perceive it as a scientific treatise, the interlocutor believes.

Father Alexander has “quick” answers to many of the “bottlenecks” of Darwin’s theory. For example, he explains the absence of finds of “transitional evolutionary forms” simply: such individuals were few in number and lived short time. Therefore, “looking for them is like looking for a needle in a haystack.” “Perhaps they will never be found due to their smallness,” adds Fr. Alexander.

It seems that the priest speaks convincingly, but still some fundamental Christian constants do not fit very well into his “evolutionary” interpretation of the Bible. For example, about the appearance of death in the perfect world created by God - only after the fall of our first parents. But for the process of evolution through natural selection, death, often violent, is completely necessary condition! Could it be that death and violence were components of what is defined in the book of Genesis: “And God saw that This Fine"?

The very origin of man in the scientific and religious presentation of Fr. Alexandra Borisova looks strange. He does not join the sacramental “man descended from the monkey” only because it is “scientifically incorrect”: the modern monkey itself, they say, is an evolutionary descendant of ancient primates. Father Alexander is convinced that “we had common ancestors with modern primates based on simple fact: Humans and chimpanzees share 95 percent of their genes. And, say, with a gibbon there are much fewer of them. This means that at some point we simply diverged along evolutionary paths, starting from a common ancestor."

The question arises, what about the formulation of human creation “in the image and likeness of God”? According to Father Alexander Borisov and his scientific associates, this means that “man, drawn by God’s plan embedded in matter from Australopithecus to Homo sapiens, acquired a perfect nervous system, capable, unlike animals, of feeling the spiritual world.”

And the biblical materials of man's creation: clay" (dust) and "Adam's rib" are, they say, spiritual allegories. Father with pleasure quotes from memory the satirical poem "Message to M. N. Longinov on Darwinism", written by the wonderful Russian poet, Orthodox person and by no means the liberal A.K. Tolstoy in 1872. It became a polemical response to the attempt of the head of the Press Administration, Mikhail Longinov, to ban the publication of Darwin’s work in Russia. In it, in particular, there are the following lines: “The way the Creator created, What He considered more opportune - The Chairman of the Press Committee cannot know.” Well, further: “And in the past there is no reason for us to seek great rank, and, for me, a piece of clay is no nobler than an orangutan.”

A poem that is truly biting and loved by all Darwinists. But it is interesting that in our conversation, Father Alexander does not at all turn to the opinion of the Holy Fathers of the Church. Although the ancient fathers, for example, St. Augustine and the more modern ones - St. Seraphim of Sarov, St. Theophan the Recluse, have statements in which you can, if you wish, find the assumption of “symbolism” in the biblical story of the creation of the world and man.

Thus, it is possible that God put his spirit not into dead clay, but into some living animal-like creature, completely transubstantiating it. But at the same time, the last of the listed saints, and many others, during whose lives Darwinism began to spread, spoke out sharply and unequivocally against this theory. The Holy Fathers insisted on the incompatibility of Darwinian evolutionism with Christianity, precisely as a comprehensive philosophical principle, a quasi-religion.

Supporters of evolution say: look around - all aspects of life are developing and improving, this is a universal law, it’s stupid to argue with it! However, looking around today, we see, for example, the primitive dances of the “ukro-patriots” over yet another defeated monument or killed by a "Colorado", the public dismemberment of a giraffe in a Danish zoo, the ritual eating of the enemy's internal organs in Syria and many other savages in the scenery of the era of "unstoppable progress".

It has long seemed to many that civilization today is not evolving, but is rapidly degrading into some kind of “zoological” form. For example, a professor at the Primate Research Institute at Kyoto University, Nobuo Masataka, published the book “Monkeys with Mobile Phones” ten years ago, in which he makes the following diagnosis: “Young people can already be confused with monkeys based on their behavior.”

I ask Father Alexander if the time has come to formulate a scientific “Theory of Degradation”?

“The processes of degradation in the world have always been parallel to development,” the priest disagrees. “In this, our era is no different from those that came before. There were bright heads and pure souls in the era of the decline of the Roman Empire, and they still exist now. And Christians have the most important antidote to degradation - faith in Christ as King and God.

In conclusion, Father Alexander says absolutely correct words, which anyone would join Orthodox priest, not related to biology and other secular sciences: “To save your own soul, to follow Christ, it is not at all so important how and when the world came into existence, how exactly man appeared. Much more important is how you live your own life, whether you find in "The path to God in your heart. Let science deal with the question of 'how everything happened,' and religion deal with the meaning of everything that happens."

Let's try to summarize. In the history of mankind, scientific hypotheses and theories are regularly refuted and replaced each other. Does the Church need to support or enter into polemics with them? After all, religion views the world in a fundamentally different coordinate system. The main thing is that they do not try to take the place of religious faith, as happened once with Marxism and. Well, on the contrary: religion should not claim the place of science, using ratio arguments that are alien to it.

In relation to school education, I think we need a balanced approach - without exaltation. On the one hand, it is hardly productive to try to ban the teaching of Darwin's theory in school by court. On the other hand, it is spiritually harmful and completely unscientific to teach evolution according to Darwin as the only correct and precisely proven concept. Even non-believing textbook writers and teachers should be scientifically honest, pointing out gaps and inconsistencies in this theory, as do unbiased scientists.

To reduce the pathos of the confrontation, I will cite an old church “reconciling” anecdote: “Work made a man out of a monkey. The ant, however, also worked a lot, but it’s all the Will of God!”

Fathers Orthodox Church about the creation of the world, man and Darwinian evolution:

“No one should think that the six-day creation is an allegory.”

Venerable Ephraim the Syrian

“Millions of years had to pass, say dumb minds in our time, for the spine to straighten and the monkey to become a man! They say this, not knowing the strength and power of God Zhivago.”

Saint Nicholas of Serbia

“When we transfer the characteristics of man into the spirit, then Darwin’s whole theory falls by itself. For in the origin of man it is necessary to explain not only how his animal life occurs, but even more so, how he came into existence as a spiritual person in an animal body with his animal life and soul." “This body - what was it? A clay grouse, or a living body? - It was a living body, - there was an animal in the form of a man, with an animal soul, and then God breathed His spirit into it...” The body is especially created from dust. It was not a dead body, but a living one with an animal soul. A spirit will be breathed into this soul—God’s spirit, destined to know God, to honor God, to seek and eat God, and to have all one’s contentment in Him, and in nothing other than Him.”

Saint Theophan the Recluse

“Darwinism, which recognizes that man, through evolution, developed from a lower species of animals, and is not a product of a creative act of the Divine, turned out to be only an assumption, a hypothesis, already outdated for science. This hypothesis was recognized as contradicting not only the Bible, but also nature itself, which is jealous strives to preserve the purity of each species, and does not know the transition even from a sparrow to a swallow. The facts of the transition from a monkey to man are unknown." "Darwinism contradicts the Bible, but it does not represent science, but only the opinion of scientists, contrary to scientifically established facts."

Saint Luke (Voino-Yasenetsky)

“The English philosopher Darwin created a whole system according to which life is a struggle for existence, a struggle between the strong and the weak, where the vanquished are doomed to death, and the winners triumph. This is already the beginning of animal philosophy, and people who believe in it do not think about killing a person, insulting a woman, to rob your closest friend - and all this completely calmly, with full awareness of your right to commit all these crimes."

Venerable Barsanuphius of Optina

“Adam was not created dead, but as an active animal being, like other animate creatures living on earth. If the Lord had not then breathed into his face this breath of life, that is, grace, then he would have been like all other creatures.”

Venerable Seraphim of Sarov

"The idea of ​​progress is adaptation to human life general principle evolution, and evolutionary theory is the legitimation of the struggle for existence... But the saints of the Orthodox Church not only were not figures of progress, but almost always fundamentally denied it.”

Hieromartyr Hilarion (Trinity)

"Many of the arguments between 'evolutionists' and 'anti-evolutionists' are futile for one main reason: they are usually talking about different things."

Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose)

This article briefly describes in simple language the features of the famous theory of the most famous English naturalist and traveler of the 19th century, Charles Darwin, and how he worked on his theory, what evidence of evolution he gave and what changed in his views towards the end of his life.

Darwin's path to his final version of the theory is a very long story. As is known, he published his book “The Origin of Species” only in 1859, when he himself was already about 50 years old. And the first ideas on this topic began to appear in his head much earlier; it took more than 20 years to think about and reflect on them. His views were formed during his voyage around the world on the Beagle. In general, evolutionary ideas appeared before Charles; there were many predecessors, such as Lamarck.

The main contribution to science of Darwin's evolutionary teachings is that it convincingly shows the very fact of gradual evolutionary changes, that species are capable of gradually changing, turning into others, diverging, dividing into daughter species, but this circumstance in itself was not a new word in science. Darwin's main merit is that he laid down a simple and convincing mechanism for evolutionary change.

For example, Lamarck’s theory proposed a plausible mechanism, which was later not confirmed, but at that stage of the development of science certainly had the right to exist. These are the results of exercise/non-exercise of organs and the result of inheritance of acquired characteristics. But as we now know, these processes do not occur in this form. For example, such a mechanism did not explain the appearance of new organs, since there was nothing to exercise until the organ itself existed.

And in order to explain the emergence of fundamentally new things in the course of evolution, Lamarck had to postulate some additional force, calling it “the organism’s desire for improvement.” In reality there is no such thing, “a piano in the bushes” and attracting extra entities looks unsuccessful and unconvincing.

Darwin, unlike his colleague, understood that there must be a natural mechanism for the evolutionary development of organisms that does not require the involvement of additional substances, which simply must exist due to the fact that heredity and variability exist. It is worth noting that in those days no one knew the principles and nature of heredity, and scientists and researchers had to guess and point their fingers at the sky in this matter.

If there is heredity and more or less random variability in the characteristics of an organism, and these hereditary characteristics are reflected in the chances of survival and the efficiency of reproduction, then the process that Charles called natural selection should automatically, spontaneously occur, that is, organisms with the same hereditary variations will leave more offspring, and with others, correspondingly less. In this way, exactly those traits that contribute to better survival and reproduction will automatically reproduce.

According to Darwin, in nature a process should occur on its own, similar to the situation in the dovecote of a pigeon breeder breeding new breeds of pigeons, only in in this case the direction of selection is set by the desire of a person, that is, a breeder, and in nature this direction is set by nature itself due to the fact that some individuals leave more offspring, while others leave less due to their hereditary differences.

This was simple and understandable for any Englishman of that time, since gentlemen were then seriously interested in selection, developing new breeds of animals: dogs, birds, horses, etc. And everyone knew that through selection one can easily change the characteristics of organisms and develop new ones breeds and varieties.

That's why Darwin called this phenomenon the term natural selection. Thanks to breeding science, they are no longer required (open the link, the article is very important!).

Has our understanding of natural selection changed with recent advances in science? Have there been significant changes since Darwin's era and have we better understood him?

Of course, science has come a long way over the past 150 years. On the one hand, humanity has begun to understand the evolutionary process in more detail and more accurately; a huge array of research and facts has accumulated, which has made it possible to concretize and improve the existing knowledge.

On the other hand, modern biologists never tire of being amazed at how much Charles managed to guess, even at that time having no idea about genetics and the physical nature of heredity.

The development of genetics brought many important discoveries to the theory of evolution, as a result of which in the 40s of the last century the synthetic theory of evolution appeared, or as it is also called the modern evolutionary synthesis. This theory was formed at the intersection of genetics and Darwinism, supplemented by the latest data from related disciplines: paleontology, molecular biology, systematics and others.

We will talk about this in the next article in the same simple language.

Video on Darwinism:

The history of the origin and further development of man has been exciting not only the minds of scientists, but also ordinary people for centuries. That is why, at various times, theories put forward at that time tried to explain this issue. In part, these include the Christian concept, which asserted that everything on Earth came from God. There is also a theory of external intervention. She claims that people appeared on our planet thanks to extraterrestrial civilizations. There are many other theories, but the most generally accepted and popular of them is the one created by Charles Darwin.

This English naturalist and traveler became one of the founders of the idea that all living organisms have gone through a complex path of evolution from common ancestors. And the main mechanism in Darwin’s theory was natural selection. In addition, the scientist worked on the theory of sexual selection. Darwin also has a theory about the origin of man. How did the English scientist come to his idea? What were the premises of Darwin's theory?

Changes in social and economic life

The 17th century was a difficult period for England. It was time bourgeois revolution, which radically changed the means of production. The number of factories and factories began to increase in the country. At the same time, the demand for products also increased Agriculture. All this became a prerequisite for the rapid development of the agricultural sector of the economy.

Somewhat later, Charles Darwin, based on the results of selection of domestic animal species, began to study similar processes occurring in the wild.

Participation in expeditions

In the 19th century. England became the most important colonial power. Charles Darwin participated in one of the expeditions as a naturalist. His main task was to study the natural resources of new places. The expedition was sent to one of the colonies, where Darwin studied plants, animals and minerals for five years. He discovered some facts that clearly contradicted creationist views that asserted the immutability of species. This led the scientist to the idea of ​​​​creating an evolutionary theory. Darwin suggested that over time there is a sequential development of some types of living organisms from others.

This assumption was confirmed by the scientist’s paleontological finds, which he made in South America. They clearly indicated that the species that existed on the planet millions of years ago had both similar features and differences with living animals. For example, extinct edentates could well have been the ancestors of modern anteaters, sloths and armadillos.

Darwin also noted that the representatives of the fauna that lived on the Galapagos Islands differed from their related species that lived on the American continent. At the same time, nowhere else they didn't meet.

The scientist was also surprised by the fact that each of the rocky islands of the Galapagos archipelago became home to one species of giant tortoises and finches. And this also contradicted creationist views. It is unlikely that the Creator had such a vast imagination to create on small islands such a great variety of animals that differed little from each other.

Theories of T. Malthus and A. Smith

There were some other prerequisites that influenced the emergence of Darwin's idea. Evolutionary theory was created under the influence of the statements of T. Malthus and A. Smith, who considered economic development in combination with population growth. In particular, this concerned the fact that the geometric increase in the number of inhabitants of the Earth does not lead to the same phenomenon in the development of means of subsistence. The number of the latter increases only in arithmetic progression. As a result, there was a catastrophic shortage of means of subsistence. T. Malthus and A. Smith found an explanation for this in the natural laws of nature. She established balance with the help of hunger, disease, etc.

Ideas of Charles Lyell

This contemporary of Charles Darwin put forward and substantiated the assumption about the changing surface of the Earth. This, as Charles Lyell argued, is directly influenced by climate and water, volcanic forces and other factors. He also expressed the idea that the organic world is also subject to gradual change. This work also became a prerequisite for the creation of the evolutionary theory of Charles Darwin.

Experiments conducted by Berzelius

Darwin's new theory was also inspired by the results obtained by chemists. They confirmed the unity of inanimate and living nature. Thus, the Swedish scientist J. Berzelius at the end of the 18th century. has been studied chemical composition certain organic products and various parts body. Scientists concluded that the same elements make up both a living being and an object of inanimate nature.

Other scientific background

Darwin's theory of evolution was also inspired by some discoveries, as a result of which it became obvious that:

• Animals and plants have homologous organs;
• within their divisions and types, living organisms have similarities in structure;
• at the early stages of development, the embryos of vertebrate animals are similar to each other (Bar's law);
• the cellular structure of organisms has unity (the hypothesis of T. Schwann and M. Schleiden).

Which theory had the greatest influence on Darwin? It's hard to say. Most likely, all the discoveries discussed above became important prerequisites for the creation of Darwin's theory. They strengthened the scientist’s confidence in the unity of the organic world.

Of course, the ideas that everything in life necessarily develops, due to which the descendants of one species can have differences from their parent forms, were not new and unusual. However, the merit of Darwin's theory is that it suggested exactly what path evolution took.

Publication of works

The result of acquaintance with all of the above theories was the creation of a work that was written by Charles Darwin in 1838. This work was published only in 1859. The reason for this was certain circumstances. In 1858, a young British naturalist, traveler and biologist, Alfred Wallers, sent Darwin a manuscript of an article that examined the tendency of varieties of living beings to deviate from their original type. This work contained a statement of the theory that asserted the origin of species through natural selection. After this, Darwin decided not to submit his work for publication. However, his comrades Joseph Dalton Hooker and Charles Lyell managed to convince the scientist otherwise. That is why in 1859 the theory of Charles Darwin came to light. The work was called “On the Origin of Species.” The success of the publication was stunning. Charles Darwin's theory was well accepted and supported by some scientists and harshly criticized by others. Moreover, all of Darwin's works that were published after that were published in many languages, instantly acquiring the status of bestsellers. The scientist immediately gained worldwide fame.

Darwin's main theories concerned changes in plants and animals during their domestication, the origins of man and his sexual selection, as well as the expression of emotions in living organisms.

The essence of the scientist's ideas

How can Darwin's theory be briefly described? Scientists introduced a new concept - “natural selection”. He argued that nature leaves those organisms that are more adapted to survival. This is the struggle for existence.

Each organism has its own individual characteristics. And this is what makes him different from others. Some of these features make the organism more capable of survival. Such individuals live much longer. Accordingly, they have more offspring. Thanks to this, the transfer of preferred characteristics to a significant number of born individuals occurs.

Darwin's theory of origin also states that gradually life forms became so different from their ancestors that biologists began to consider them as independent, distinct groups. This theory of Darwin's species still underlies modern ideas about evolution.

Somewhat later, biologists discovered that living organisms contain small chemical particles that were called genes. It is they who determine the characteristics that are passed on from parents to the next generation. From time to time, genes mutate or change. This leads to the emergence of new features that can be passed on to subsequent generations.

Principles of Darwin's theory

The whole essence of the idea of ​​​​the origin of species, put forward by scientists, lies in a whole set of provisions that are completely logical and can be confirmed by facts and verified experimentally. This is the main reason for the popularity of these works.

What provisions of Darwin's theory are considered fundamental? Let's take a closer look at them.

1. In any species of living organisms there is a huge range of genetic individual variability. It is expressed in physiological, behavioral, as well as in any other signs. Such variability can be of a continuous quantitative nature or intermittent qualitative. At the same time, it exists constantly. That is why it is simply impossible to find even two individuals identical to each other in terms of the totality of their characteristics.
2. Any living organism has the ability to rapidly increase its population. And there is no exception to the rule that the reproduction of organisms occurs in such a progression that if not for their extermination, one pair could cover the entire planet with their offspring.
3. Any species of animal has only limited resources for life. That is why the large reproduction of individuals serves as a kind of catalyst in the struggle for existence, which is waged between representatives of either the same species or different ones. What else does Charles Darwin's theory tell us about this? The scientist argued that the struggle for existence is a broad concept. Representatives of all species strive not only to preserve life. Another component of the struggle for existence is the desire of individuals to provide themselves with offspring.
4. Only those individuals remain on Earth that have special deviations that allowed them to survive and adapt to specific environmental conditions. Moreover, such individual traits arise completely by chance, and are not a consequence of any external influences. Individuals pass on such beneficial deviations to their descendants at the genetic level. That is why subsequent generations are more adapted to environmental conditions.
5. Natural selection itself is nothing more than a process of survival, as well as the preferential reproduction of those individuals that were able to quickly adapt to the environment. Charles Darwin's theory of evolution states that such a phenomenon is similar to the actions of a breeder. Nature also discards the bad and retains the good changes in living organisms. And she does this all the time.
6. If you observe individual varieties in different living conditions, then during natural selection there will certainly be a divergence in their characteristics. This will lead to the formation of a completely new species.

All provisions of Darwin's theory are considered impeccable in logical terms. Moreover, each of them is supported by a large amount of factual material. The described assumptions are the basis of Darwin’s theory of evolution, which we begin to become familiar with during our school years.

Principles of life development

Darwin's theory underlies modern biology. Nevertheless, the attitude of scientists towards this discovery is still far from clear. Even those who have embraced the idea admit there are still many questions about it. Why is Darwin's theory not fully explained? The fact is that some of its provisions have not been unambiguously confirmed. This, for example, concerns the question of the origin of animal species. How this happens is still not completely clear to scientists.

Darwin planned to make his book “On the Origin of Species” one of the parts of a more fundamental and voluminous work that could shed light on this and many other questions. However, he never managed to do this. But at the same time, the scientist noted that natural selection is far from the only factor that determines the formation and further development of various forms of life. In order to reproduce and produce offspring, living organisms need cooperation. In other words, individuals strive to become part of a particular community. As a result of evolution, stable social groups are created that have a clear hierarchical structure. Life on Earth without cooperation, according to Darwin, could not have advanced beyond its simplest forms.

Human Origins

Darwin put forward his own hypothesis, revealing the mystery of the origin of people, based on the results obtained after many years of research and observation. In the famous works that he wrote in 1871-1872, the scientist argued that man is part of nature. That is why the very fact of the appearance of people on Earth is not an exception to those rules that are inherent in the evolution of the entire organic world.

According to Darwin's theory, man is related to lower ancestors on the steps of evolution, and he descended from a monkey. It is worth noting that this is not the first time such a hypothesis has been voiced. The idea that humans are closely related to apes was developed by other researchers before Darwin. For example, James Burnett in the 18th century. worked on a theory explaining the evolution of language.

Charles Darwin did a great job of collecting various comparative embryological and anatomical data. It was they who pointed out the kinship between humans and monkeys. This idea was later substantiated by scientists. He suggested that man, as well as all species of monkeys, descended from one species of living beings. This assumption became the basis for the emergence of the simial theory. According to her, primates and modern people have a common ancestor - an ape-like creature that lived in the Neogene period.

Somewhat later, the German biologist Ernst Haeckel gave this intermediate form its name - “pithecanthropus”. At the end of the 19th century. Dutch anthropologist Eugene Dubois discovered the remains of a similar humanoid creature on the island of Java. The scientist described it as an "upright Pithecanthropus."

Such creatures were the first “intermediate forms” discovered by anthropologists. Thanks to such finds, Darwin's theory of human evolution received a significant evidence base. But how did this process happen? In order to understand this, you need to turn back time and see what was on Earth millions of years ago.

The origin of life on our planet occurred in the ocean. Microorganisms that were capable of reproduction arose in its waters. Over time they continued to develop and improve. At the same time, multicellular life forms arose, such as algae, fish, as well as other fauna and flora.

Over time, living creatures began to gradually move onto land, developing other habitats for themselves. It is quite possible that some of the fish species began to emerge to the surface by chance, or perhaps this was influenced by strong competition. Be that as it may, amphibians appeared on the planet. This is a new class of living organisms that could exist and develop in both environments. More than one million years passed, and thanks to natural selection, only the fittest representatives of the Amphibian class remained on land. They gave rise to an increasing number of offspring, which became more and more adapted to life on land. At the same time, such animal species as mammals, reptiles and birds arose. Natural selection that took place over millions of years led to the fact that only those populations remained on Earth that were able to best adapt to the changed environmental conditions. Many of these species have not survived to this day. But they left behind more resilient descendants.

One of these species is dinosaurs. At one time they were the real masters of the planet. However, natural disasters that occurred on Earth changed living conditions. Dinosaurs were never able to adapt to them. Among their descendants, only reptiles and birds live today.

As long as dinosaurs continued to be the dominant species, mammals on our planet were represented by only a few breeds, the size of which did not exceed those of modern rodents. But it was precisely their unpretentiousness to food and small stature that helped them survive those natural disasters, due to which almost 90% of all living organisms were destroyed.

More than one millennium passed before weather conditions stabilized on Earth. In the absence of their competitors (dinosaurs), mammals began to actively reproduce. Thus, a large number of varieties of living beings have arisen on our planet. Moreover, they all belonged to mammals. One of them were the ancestors of humans and monkeys. Data from numerous studies confirm that these creatures lived in forests and hid in trees from large predators. But gradually the weather conditions changed. Forests decreased in size, and savannas arose in their places. Because of this, the ancestors of people had to come down from the trees. Such a change in habitat led to upright walking, brain development, reduction of body hair, etc.

More than one million years have passed. Natural selection led to the survival of only the fittest groups. Our ancestors evolved, successively passing through certain stages.

Misunderstanding of the processes described above led to the fact that before the advent of Darwin’s theory, biologists for a long time could not unravel the mystery of human origin. The first assumptions that his ancestor was a monkey were attacked by critics.

Proof of the theory

Despite the fact that Darwin's idea is more than one hundred and forty years old, many people are still not ready to accept the fact of their kinship with primates. Scientists have constantly pursued these questions, trying to prove or disprove evolutionary theory.

However, researchers found more and more evidence in its favor. The fact that in ancient times humans and monkeys had common ancestors is evidenced by the following facts:

1. Paleontological. Scientists are conducting numerous excavations around the world. However, they only find the remains of a person who lived from 40 thousand years BC. e. and until now. In earlier breeds, scientists discover Pithecanthropus, Australopithecines, Neanderthals, etc. That is, the deeper researchers go into the past, the more primitive types of humans they discover in it.
2. Morphological. Primates and humans are the only creatures on the planet whose heads are covered with hair, not fur, and whose fingers grow nails. The morphological structure of their organs is similar. What brings humans closer to primates are the bad things, if we consider representatives of the animal world, hearing and smell.
3. Embryonic. The human fetus goes through all stages of evolution in the mother’s body. Thus, the embryos develop gills, a tail grows, and a coat of fur appears on the body. And only later the features of the embryo become similar to those of modern humans. Sometimes some newborns have rudimentary organs and atavisms (tail and fur).
4. Genetic. The relationship between humans and primates is proven by genes. After millions of years, human genes differ from those found in chimpanzees by only 1.5%. Also in humans and these animals there is a significant number of retroviral invasions. There are about 30,000 of them. This fact serves as one of the most striking evidence of the relationship between humans and chimpanzees.

Darwin's theory of evolution is the work of a man who at one time abandoned the profession of a doctor because he was afraid of blood. After this he began to study theology. There are several more very interesting facts. Thus, it is known that Darwin dined on the exotic species of animals that he studied. And the phrase “survival of the fittest” was not said by the author of the theory of evolution. It belongs to his like-minded friend and contemporary Herbert Spencer.

The very idea put forward by Darwin contradicts claims about the divine creation of the world. Initially, the church was hostile to this theory. It is interesting that Darwin himself, in the process of creating his work, stopped believing in God. However, 126 years after the death of the scientist, the Anglican Church apologized to him. Moreover, this was done officially. Today, many representatives of religious movements have come to the conclusion that real reconciliation is possible. That is, those people who believe in God may not deny evolution. The Anglican and Catholic churches finally accepted Charles Darwin's theory. They explain it by saying that God created the beginning of life, and then it continued to develop naturally.

It is also interesting that fame came not only to Darwin. Together with him, finches also gained fame. Although these birds were found to be called tanagers, they are still called "Darwin's finches".

Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences
“Science at first hand” No. 4(34), 2010

about the author Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Honored Professor of the University. George Mason (USA), foreign member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, academician of the New York Academy of Sciences, honorary professor of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow State University. Lomonosov and Jerusalem University. In 1961–1970 worked at the institutes of the USSR Academy of Sciences and Academy of Medical Sciences, from 1970 to 1978 at the All-Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences. In 1974 he created the All-Union Research Institute of Applied Molecular Biology and Genetics of the All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Moscow. Areas of scientific interest: the effect of radiation and chemicals on genes, the study of the physicochemical structure of DNA, repair in plants, the effect of radioactive contamination on the human genome. Awarded the International Gregor Mendel Medal and the N. I. Vavilov Silver Medal. Author of more than 20 books, including on the history of science, published in Russia, the USA, England, Germany, Vietnam and the Czech Republic, editor-in-chief of the 10-volume encyclopedia "Modern Natural Science", member of the editorial board of the magazine "SCIENCE First Hand"

In 1859, the book of the English scientist Charles Darwin “The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favorable Breeds in the Struggle for Existence” was published. It immediately became a bestseller, topping the list of world-famous books and bringing its author the laurels of being the only discoverer of evolutionary theory. However, the latter is not only inaccurate, but also historically unfair in relation to other scientists, Darwin’s predecessors and contemporaries, as is proven in the next “evolutionary essay” published in our journal from the forthcoming book of the famous scientist and historian of science V.N. Soifer “ Evolutionary idea and Marxists".

Charles Darwin was born on February 12, 1809 - the year the Philosophy of Zoology by Jean Baptiste Lamarck was published, in which the first evolutionary theory was presented in detail and in detail.

Darwin did not excel at school. Things were also not going well at college, and in the end his father sent him away - to Scotland, where in October 1825 the 16-year-old boy began studying at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Edinburgh (this choice of his son’s future specialty was not accidental - his father was a successful doctor ). After two years, it became clear that Charles would not be able to become a doctor. A new transfer followed - this time to another famous university, Cambridge, but to the Faculty of Theology. Charles himself recalled about studying there: “... the time I spent in Cambridge was seriously lost, and even worse than lost. My passion for rifle shooting and hunting... led me into a circle... of young people of not very high morality... We often drank to excess, and then funny songs and cards followed. ... I know that I should be ashamed of the days and evenings spent in this way, but some of my friends were such nice guys, and we all had so much fun that I still remember this time with pleasure.”

Finally, in May 1831, Darwin passed his baccalaureate examination. He was supposed to study at the faculty for two more semesters, but events turned out differently. Taking advantage of a rare opportunity, he hired, against the wishes of his father, on the Beagle, which was setting off on a voyage around the world under the command of Captain Robert Fitz Roy. Darwin's duties as a naturalist included collecting animals, plants, and geological specimens. Over five years, Darwin visited South America, the Pacific Islands, New Zealand, Australia and other parts of the globe.

The five-year trip around the world came to an end on October 2, 1836. Now Darwin had to begin describing the collections he had collected and publishing data about the trip. Three years later, his first book was published - “Voyage on the Beagle Ship” (or “Diary of Research”), which immediately brought enormous popularity to the young author. Darwin had a rare gift as a storyteller, able to highlight details and events, even those that were not very interesting at first glance.

Did it all start with Malthus?

When did Darwin first think about the problems of evolution? He himself mentioned many times that he came to his evolutionary hypothesis in 1842 and that he was inspired by this idea from the book of the great English economist Thomas Robert Malthus, “An Essay on the Law of Population” (1798). Malthus argued that the population on Earth is growing over time in geometric progression, and the means of subsistence - only in arithmetic. Darwin claimed that this thesis struck him, and he translated this pattern to the whole of nature, suggesting that there is always a struggle for existence in it, since there are not enough sources of food and habitat for all those born.

The thesis about the existence of such a struggle between representatives of the same species ( intraspecific struggle), as well as between individuals of different species ( interspecific struggle), was Darwin's major innovation. He stated that evolution occurs due to the selection of individuals better adapted to the external environment ( natural selection). If there really is not enough space under the sun for all those born and the weak die in competition with the strong, then if some organism accidentally turns out to be more adapted to the environment, it will be easier for it to survive and produce more offspring. If the improved trait is retained by the descendants of the lucky one, then they will begin to crowd out their relatives less adapted to such an environment and reproduce faster. Nature will take a small step forward, and then, lo and behold, an even more fortunate person with an even more perfect structure will appear. And so - for millions of years, as long as life exists on Earth.

Darwin, according to him, began to think about the problems of species variability already during the voyage on the Beagle: “I came to the idea that species probably change from data on geographical distribution, etc., but over the course of several years I was helpless before the complete inability to propose a mechanism by which every part of every creature would be adapted to the conditions of their life.” Lamarck's idea of ​​gradual improvement of species had become quite popular by this time. Just as a drop chisels a stone, statements about natural development and the emergence of new species that have been repeated for decades have done their job and accustomed people to the idea that evolution is permissible. It is appropriate to recall Benjamin Franklin with his thesis about man transformed into one from an animal thanks to the production of tools, and Charles’s famous grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, a doctor and publicist, who set out in his essay “Zoonomy, or the Laws of Organic Life” (1795) the idea of ​​organic progress.

Darwin repeatedly repeated (including in his declining years in his Autobiography) that the idea of ​​natural selection dawned on him in October 1838, when he came across Malthus’s book. However, he allegedly did not make the first draft of his hypothesis at the same time, but only 4 years later, in 1842. This manuscript, often mentioned by Darwin in letters to friends, was not published during his lifetime.

After Darwin’s death, his son Francis published the book “Fundamentals of the Origin of Species,” in which he included two previously unknown manuscripts of his father - the above-mentioned first draft of the hypothesis on 35 pages (allegedly written by his father in 1842) and a more extensive one (230 pages). .) text marked 1844. Why these works were not published during the author’s lifetime, although, as we will see later, there was an urgent need for this, it is now hardly possible to find out.

Unpublished manuscripts

By 1842–1844, during the decades that had passed since Lamarck published his work on evolution, many facts had accumulated in biology that were quite consistent with evolutionary ideas. The idea has strengthened, and society has matured to accept it.

This is evidenced by another, curious, example. In 1843 and 1845 In England, a 2-volume work by an anonymous author, “Traces of Natural History,” was published. It outlined the idea of ​​the evolution of the living world, pointed out the connection between related species, and cited the role of electricity and magnetism in this process as the reason for the change in species.

The author made the following analogy: metal filings form a characteristic picture of a branched plant stem around one end electrical conductor or the poles of a magnet and a picture more like a plant root around another. Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that plants arose this way, because electrical forces took part in their formation. Despite such superficial judgments, the author created a work that was read with unflagging interest.

One of Darwin's friends, writer and publicist Robert Chambers, sent him a copy of the sensational book, and Darwin read it with interest. Six years after the book was published, it became clear that Chambers was its author.

One letter from Darwin dates back to 1844, shedding light on the fact that it was in this year that he himself began to attach great importance to his thoughts about evolution, which was not the case before. He wrote a long letter to his wife Emma on June 5, 1844, in which he set out in lofty terms his will: in the event of his sudden death, to spend 400 pounds on finishing the just completed manuscript on evolution (the task was detailed - to select appropriate examples from books marked by Darwin, edit the text, etc.). On the other hand, it was in January of the same year that in a letter to the botanist Joseph Hooker, the son of the director of the Royal botanical garden and the son-in-law of the then patriarch of geology, Charles Lyell, Darwin said that he was thinking about the problem of variability of species.

Why did Darwin suddenly decide to address his wife with a special message? He actually complained about his health during these years (no diagnosis was made, and he remained sick for another 40 (!) years). It would seem that if he valued his idea of ​​evolution so much that he was ready to spend money on paying fees from the inheritance he left, then he would have to spend all available energy and time on bringing the main work to the final stage. But nothing of the kind happened. One after another, he published thick books about anything, but not about evolution. In 1845, the second, revised edition of the “Diary of Travel on the Beagle” was published, in 1846 - a volume on geological observations in South America, in 1851 - a monograph on barnacles, then a book on barnacles, etc. the essay on evolution lay motionless. What was Darwin waiting for? Why were you afraid to expose your work to criticism from your colleagues? Perhaps he was afraid that someone would see in his work borrowing from other people's works without reference to the true authors?

What Darwin did do, however, was often remind his high-ranking friends in letters that he spent all his free time thinking about the problem of evolution. Some of Darwin's recipients knew his main thesis in very general terms: there are not enough supplies of food, water and other means of subsistence for all those born, only those who have the potential to survive are kept alive. They are the ones who ensure progress in the living world.

Edward Blyth and his idea of ​​natural selection

Darwin's supporters later explained his strange slowness in publishing a work on evolution by the fact that he was allegedly absolutely convinced that this idea could not have occurred to anyone, which is why there was no reason to rush to publish the hypothesis, although his friends hurried Darwin with printing this work. This became clear from the surviving correspondence published after Darwin’s death (his son Francis reported that his father more than once carefully reviewed all his correspondence and selectively burned some of the letters).

However, it is unlikely that Darwin’s behavior is explained solely by unshakable confidence in his originality. In 1959, during the centennial celebration of the publication of On the Origin of Species, University of Pennsylvania anthropology professor Loren Eisley argued that Darwin had other reasons for delaying the publication of the evolutionary hypothesis for almost twenty years. According to Eisley, who carried out enormous research work, Darwin did not independently come to the idea of ​​the struggle for existence, but borrowed it, and not at all from the economist Malthus, but from the then famous biologist Edward Blyth, who was personally close to Darwin.

Blyth was a year younger than Darwin, grew up in a poor family and due to difficult financial situation I was able to finish only a regular school. To support himself, he was forced to go to work, and spent all his free time reading and diligently visiting the British Museum in London. In 1841 he received the post of curator of the Museum of the Royal Asiatic Society in Bengal and spent 22 years in India. Here he carried out first-class research into the nature of Southeast Asia. In 1863, due to a sharp deterioration in his health, he was forced to return to England, where he died in 1873.

In 1835 and 1837 Blyth published two articles in the Journal of Natural History in which he introduced the concepts of the struggle for existence and the survival of those more adapted to the environment. However, according to Blyth, selection does not proceed in the direction of increasingly improved creatures acquiring properties that give them advantages over already existing organisms, but in a completely different way.

The task of selection, according to Blyth, is to preserve the invariance of the basic characteristics of the species. He believed that any new changes in organs (now we would call them mutations) cannot bring anything progressive to already existing species that have been well adapted to the external environment over millions of years. Changes will only disrupt the well-established mechanism of interaction between the environment and organisms. Therefore, all newcomers, inevitably spoiled by the disorders that have arisen in them, will be cut off by selection, will not withstand competition with well-adapted typical forms and will die out. Thus Blyth applied the principle of selection to wildlife, although selection was given a conservative rather than a creative role.

Darwin could not help but know Blyth's works: he held in his hands issues of journals with his articles and quoted them. He wrote, more than once, that he carefully and carefully followed all publications concerning the development of life on Earth, and especially those close to him in spirit. He also cited many other works of Blyth, paying tribute to the merits of his colleague, so he could not ignore his works on natural selection. However, he never referred to the article in which Blyth clearly and clearly presented the idea of ​​​​the struggle for existence and natural selection.

Being proud and, as Eisley and a number of other historians believed, obsessed with the mania of shared glory, Darwin could take advantage of Blyth’s fundamental provisions, after which he began to put his notes in order. By 1844, he could actually prepare a rather voluminous manuscript on evolution, but, realizing the lack of originality of his work on the cornerstone issue of natural science, he waited, played for time, hoping that some circumstances would change something in the world and allow him to “save face” " That is why in his “Autobiography” he repeated once again: the only impetus for him to think about the role of natural selection was the book of Malthus. It was safe to refer to an economist, rather than a biologist, who spoke about natural selection in the world of living beings several years earlier, because the priority is in the application economic analysis to the situation in the biological world remained with the biologist, that is, with himself.

But even in this statement, meticulous historians found a stretch: although Darwin indicated the exact date when he read Malthus’s book (October 1838), neither in the essay of 1842, nor in the more voluminous work of 1844 did he refer to Malthus as he never once referred to the person who pushed him to the idea of ​​evolution, and in the place where he mentioned him, it was not at all about the idea of ​​competition.

Eisley found several more similar cases in which Darwin treated his direct predecessors indelicately and thus partly confirmed the correctness of the opinion expressed back in 1888 by Professor Houghton from Dublin about Darwin’s views regarding the origin of species: “Everything that was new in them was wrong, and what was right was already known.”

Apparently, this explains the mysterious fact of Darwin’s reluctance to publish a work on the origin of species for almost 20 years.

Evolutionary views of Alfred Wallace

Perhaps this work would have continued to remain in Darwin’s chest if one day an event had not occurred that forced him to urgently change his position. In 1858, he received by mail the work of his compatriot Alfred Wallace, who was at that moment far from England. In it, Wallace presented the same idea about the role of natural selection for progressive evolution.

From reading Wallace's work, Darwin realized that his competitor had developed the hypothesis of evolution even more extensively than he had, since he had included in his analysis not only the material on domestic animals, which Darwin had predominantly used, but also gleaned facts from the wild. Darwin was particularly struck by the fact that Wallace's main formulations were stated in the same words as in his "Essay on Evolution", and it was Wallace who referred to Malthus.

How could it be that a competitor described the same thing? Alfred Russell Wallace (1823–1913) spent many years collecting scientific collections on expeditions to the Amazon and Rio Negro rivers, the Malay Archipelago and other places (he amassed a collection containing 125 thousand botanical, zoological and geological specimens; compiled dictionaries 75 adverbs, etc.). Wallace began to think about the problem of the origin of species almost simultaneously with Darwin. In any case, already in 1848, in a letter to his friend, traveler Henry Bates, he wrote: “I would like to collect and thoroughly study representatives of any one family, mainly from the point of view of the origin of the species.”

It is strange that researchers of Darwinism rarely mention the most important fact for understanding the formation of Wallace’s evolutionary views: in September 1855, four years before the first edition of Darwin’s Origin of Species, Wallace published in “ Annals and Magazine of Natural History” article entitled “On the Law Regulating the Appearance of New Species.” In it, Wallace not only made a statement about the existence of the process of evolution of species, but also pointed out the role of geographic isolation in the formation of new varieties. He even formulated a law: “The appearance of each species coincides geographically and chronologically with the appearance of a species very close to it and preceding it.” His other thesis was also significant: “Species are formed according to the plan of previous ones.” He based these conclusions not only on data from studying collections of contemporary species, but also on fossil forms.

A. Wallace, who knew wild nature well, drew examples from his expedition observations. In the introduction to his book “Darwinism...” (1889) he writes: “The weak point in Darwin’s works has always been considered that he primarily based his theory on the phenomena of external variability of domesticated animals and cultivated plants. Therefore, I tried to find a solid explanation for his theory in the facts of the variability of organisms in natural conditions."

Wallace, as is usual in the scientific community, sent his article to fellow biologists, including Darwin, whom he highly valued for his description of the voyage on the Beagle. A traveler and naturalist, Wallace was well aware of the difficult task of describing the monotonous journeys from place to place and the repetitive activities of day after day. Two prominent scientists - Lyell and Blyth - also drew Darwin's attention to Wallace's article, as Darwin reported in a letter to Wallace dated December 22, 1857.

Darwin responded positively to Wallace's work, and from that time on, correspondence began between them. But Darwin, intentionally or unwittingly, dampened Wallace's energy in regard to further thinking about the problem of the origin of species when, in one of his letters, he casually informed him that he had been working on the same problem for a long time and was writing a large book on the origin of species. This message had an effect on Wallace, as he wrote in a letter to Bates: “I am very pleased with Darwin’s letter, in which he writes that he agrees with “almost every word” of my work. Now he is preparing his great work on species and varieties, for which he has been collecting material for 20 years. He can save me the trouble of writing further about my hypothesis... in any case, his facts will be placed at my disposal, and I can work on them.”

However, as all Darwin’s biographers unanimously testify, despite his promises, Darwin did not provide his hypotheses and the facts in his hands to Wallace. Thus, the prominent Russian biographer of Darwin A.D. Nekrasov writes: “...Darwin, citing the impossibility of expressing his views in a letter, kept silent about the theory of selection. Wallace came to the idea of ​​natural selection independently of Darwin.... Without a doubt, Darwin in his letters did not say a single word about either the principle of the struggle for existence or the preservation of the fittest. And Wallace came to these principles independently of Darwin.”

So, Wallace himself formulated the hypothesis of natural selection, and this happened on January 25, 1858, when the traveler was on one of the islands of the Moluccas archipelago. Wallace fell ill with a severe fever and, between attacks, suddenly clearly imagined how Malthus's reasoning about overpopulation and its role in evolution could be applied. After all, if Malthus is right, then the chances for better survival are higher for organisms that are better adapted to living conditions! In the “struggle for existence,” they will prevail over those less adapted, produce more offspring, and, due to better reproduction, occupy a wider area.

After this insight, a general picture quickly formed in the mind of Wallace, who had been thinking about the problems of species change for many years. Since he already had the basic facts, it was not difficult for him to hastily sketch out the theses of the article and also hastily complete the entire work, giving it a clear title: “On the tendency of varieties to move endlessly away from the original type.” He sent this article to Darwin at the first opportunity, asking for help with publication. As Nekrasov wrote, “Wallace sent it to Darwin, hoping that the application of the principle of the “struggle for existence” to the question of the origin of species would be as much news to Darwin as it was to himself.”

However, Wallace's assumption that Darwin would help popularize his work was a mistake and forever deprived him of his completely legitimate priority in publishing the principle of evolution through the selection of organisms best adapted to environmental conditions. Darwin not only did nothing to quickly publish Wallace's work, but also tried to take all measures to assert his primacy.

Hasty publication of Darwin's work

Having received Wallace's work, Darwin realized that he had been ahead of him. It is significant that in a letter to Lyell he admitted: “I have never seen such a striking coincidence; if Wallace had my 1842 manuscript, he could not have produced a better abridged review. Even its titles correspond to the titles of my chapters."

Having learned about what had happened, two of Darwin's friends - Charles Lyell and Joseph Hooker, who occupied high position in the scientific circles of England, decided to save the situation and presented to the members of the Linnean Society of London both the completed work of Wallace and Darwin’s short (two pages) note “On the Tendency of Species to Form Varieties and Species by Means of Natural Selection.” Both materials were read on July 1, 1859 at a meeting of the society and then published under this date.

Darwin was not present at the meeting. There were two speakers - Lyell and Hooker. One of them eagerly, the other more restrainedly, said that they had witnessed Darwin’s creative torment and certified with their authority the fact of his priority. The meeting ended in deathly silence. Nobody made any statements.

By the end of the year, Darwin had completed On the Origin of Species and paid for its publication. The book was printed in two weeks; the entire circulation (1250 copies) was sold out in one day. Darwin hastily paid for the second edition, and a month later another 3,000 copies went on sale; then the third edition, corrected and expanded, was published, then the fourth, etc. Darwin's name gained enormous popularity.

Wallace, fully reconciled with the loss of priority, published the book “Contribution to the Theory of Natural Selection” in 1870, and in 1889 - a huge (750 pages) volume, symbolically called “Darwinism. An Exposition of the Theory of Natural Selection and Some of Its Applications".

The main purpose of these books was to illustrate with examples the principle of better survival of animals and plants that are more adapted to a given environment. Darwin largely used examples from the field of domestication of animals, breeding of livestock breeds, ornamental birds and fish, and selection of plant varieties.

It is appropriate to remember that Wallace had previously (in an article in 1856) rejected the evidence of examples of evolution drawn from the sphere of variability of domesticated animals, rightly pointing out that adaptive variability does not exist in domestic animals. After all, it is man who selects the best forms for him, and the animals themselves do not participate in the struggle for existence: “Thus, from observations of the varieties of domestic animals, no conclusions can be drawn regarding the varieties of animals living in the wild.”

Darwin's attitude towards Lamarck

Darwin never tired of repeating that his views had nothing in common with Lamarck’s, and throughout his life he never ceased to speak ill of his great predecessor. Perhaps the very thought that he was not the first and that 50 years before him the same thoughts had already been expressed by a Frenchman weighed heavily on him.

In the 1840s. in letters to Hooker, he wrote about this more than once: “... I don’t know any systematic works on this subject, except Lamarck’s book, but this is real rubbish”; “Lamarck... damaged the issue with his absurd, although intelligent, work”; “May Heaven save me from the stupid Lamarckian “striving for progress”, “adaptation due to the slow desire of animals” and so on.” True, he was forced to continue the last phrase from the above quotes with the words: “But the conclusions I come to do not differ significantly from his conclusions, although the methods of change are quite different.”

In one of his letters to Lyell, sent almost twenty years later, he wrote, discussing the significance of his predecessor’s work: “I look at it (the Philosophy of Zoology - author’s note), having read it carefully twice, as a miserable book , from which I gained no benefit. But I know you took advantage of her more.”

In general, as the Russian researcher of Darwinism Vl. Karpov, initially “Lamarck was alien and little understood by Darwin, as a representative of a different mentality, a circle of ideas, a different nationality.” Nevertheless, there were more fundamental similarities in the books of Lamarck and Darwin than differences. Both authors were unanimous on the central issue - the proclamation of the principle of progressive development of species, and both stated that it was the need to better meet the requirements of the external environment that forced species to progress.

Even the main groups of examples used by Darwin coincided with Lamarck's examples (breeds of dogs, poultry, garden plants). Only Darwin tried to give as many examples as possible, albeit of the same type, but giving the reader the impression of solidity and thoroughness; Lamarck limited himself to one or two examples for each point.

The extinction of species, according to Darwin, is a phenomenon that correlates with the origin of new species: “Since, over time, new species are formed by the activity of natural selection, others must become increasingly rare and finally disappear. ...In the chapter devoted to the struggle for existence, we saw that the most fierce competition should occur between forms that are closest - varieties of the same species or one genus or genera closest to each other, since these forms will have almost the same structure, a common warehouse and habits"

Where Darwin's thoughts differed greatly from Lamarck's was in his attempt to explain the causes of evolution. Lamarck looked for them inside organisms, in their inherent ability to change the structure of the body depending on the exercise of the organs (and in the second half of the 19th century, this position of Lamarck was regarded as extremely important, because the overwhelming majority of scientists believed that living beings inherently have the property of self-improvement). Darwin initially proceeded from the fact that the properties of organisms could change due to random reasons, and the external environment played the role of a controller, cutting off less adapted individuals. But since Darwin did not understand what could change in organisms, what hereditary structures were, these thoughts of his were entirely hypothetical philosophizing.

The paradox is that, having started with a categorical denial of Lamarck’s “stupid” views, Darwin gradually began to change his views and talk about the possibility of direct inheritance of characteristics acquired during life. The main reason for this change was the most important circumstance that also hindered Lamarck, namely: the lack of information about the laws of inheritance of traits, ignorance of the fact that there are special structures in the body that carry hereditary information.

However, if at the time of Lamarck science was still far from posing questions related to the discovery of the laws of heredity, and it would have been absurd to cast even a shadow of reproach against Lamarck, then by the time of the publication of “The Origin of Species” the situation had changed radically.

Gemmules instead of genes

The first approaches to understanding the laws of heredity, although still in a rather amorphous form, emerged as a result of the work of the German researcher Joseph Gottlieb Kölreuther (1733–1806), who worked for several years in St. Petersburg, and a number of other European scientists. Koelreuter in 1756–1760 conducted the first experiments on hybridization and formulated the concept of heritability.

The Englishman Thomas Andrew Knight (1789–1835), crossing different varieties of cultivated plants, came to the conclusion that in generations of hybrid plants, the characteristics by which the original varieties differ from each other “scatter” and appear individually. Moreover, he noted that there are minor individual differences that are not further “divided” during crossings and retain their individuality over generations. Thus, already at the beginning of the 19th century. Knight formulated the concept of elementary inherited traits.

Frenchman Auguste Sajray (1763–1851) in 1825–1835 made another important discovery. By monitoring Knight's "elementary traits," he discovered that some of them, when combined with others, suppressed the expression of those traits. This is how dominant and recessive traits were discovered.

In 1852, another Frenchman, Charles Naudin (1815–1899), studied these two types of traits more closely and, like Sajray, found that in combinations of dominant and recessive traits, the latter cease to appear. However, as soon as such hybrids are crossed with each other, they appear again in some of their descendants (later Mendel will call this process the splitting of characters). These works proved the most important fact - the preservation of hereditary structures that carry information about suppressed (recessive) traits, even in cases where these traits did not appear externally. Naudin tried to discover quantitative patterns of the combination of dominant and recessive traits, but, having undertaken to monitor a large number of them at once, he became confused in the results and was unable to move forward.

Darwin was well aware of the results of the work of these scientists, but he did not understand their significance, did not appreciate the great benefit that the discoveries of elementary hereditary units, the patterns of their combination and manifestation in descendants brought him. One more step should have been taken - to simplify the problem and analyze the quantitative distribution of traits in organisms that differ in one or at most two traits, and then the laws of genetics would have been discovered.

This breakthrough in science was made by the Czech naturalist and brilliant experimenter Johann Gregor Mendel, who in 1865 published a brilliant work in which he outlined the conclusions of experiments to identify the laws of heredity. Mendel built the scheme of his experiments precisely by simplifying the problem, when he decided to scrupulously monitor the behavior in crossings, first of only one inherited trait, and then of two. As a result, he proved, now definitively, the presence of elementary units of heredity, clearly described the rules of dominance, discovered quantitative patterns of combining units of heredity in hybrids and the rules for the splitting of hereditary characters.

Darwin, therefore, could have discovered these laws himself (he advanced in understanding the importance of elucidating the laws of inheritance, moreover, the progress of science at that time was so noticeable that what Mendel did was, in principle, accessible to anyone thinking about the problems of inheritance). But Darwin was not an experimenter. Of course, he could have simply read the work published by Mendel in German, but this also did not happen.

Instead, Darwin began to come up with a hypothesis (he pretentiously called it a theory) of pangenesis, about how the transmission of hereditary properties to descendants is carried out. He admitted the presence in any part of the body of “... special, independently reproducing and feeding hereditary grains - gemmules, which are collected in sexual products, but can be scattered throughout the body... each of which can restore in the next generation that part that gave them a start."

This hypothesis was by no means original: the same idea was put forward in his 36-volume History of Nature by Georges Louis Leclerc Buffon a hundred years before Darwin. Many major scientists, including those who helped Darwin strengthen his priority in proclaiming the role of natural selection in evolution (Hooker and Lyell), advised Darwin not to publish his “theory of pangenesis.” He verbally agreed with them, but in fact decided not to deviate from his own and included the corresponding chapter in the book “Changes in Animals and Plants under the Influence of Domestication,” published in 1868 (three years after Mendel’s work).

Until the end of his life, Darwin remained convinced that his theory of pangenesis was destined for a great future. Although in letters to those on whose help he depended all his life (Lyell, Hooker, Huxley), he coquettishly called this brainchild of his “a rash and half-baked hypothesis,” said that “to engage in such speculation is “pure nonsense”” and promised “ try to convince himself not to publish" a statement of his "theory", but he was not going to fulfill this promise, but only tried to dampen the critical fervor of his high friends. To other addressees at the same time he wrote something completely different: "Deep in my soul I believe that it contains a great truth" (letter to A. Gray, 1867), or: "I would rather die than cease to protect my poor child from attacks" (letter to G. Spencer, 1868). The same notes sounded later. : “With regard to pangenesis, I do not intend to fold my banner” (letter to A. Wallace, 1875); “I have had to think a lot about this issue, and I am convinced of its great importance, although it will take years until physiologists realize that the genital organs only collect reproductive elements” (letter to J. Romanes, 1875).

A tailless cat cannot be obtained by exercise.

In most cases, when discussing Darwin's pangenesis hypothesis, it is customary to say that its author did not go far from his time, but, they say, Mendel was ahead of his time by 35 years (it is not for nothing that his laws were actually rediscovered 35 years later). But we can say it another way: in understanding the mechanisms of inheritance of traits, Darwin did not reach the level of his contemporary Mendel.

Meanwhile, this question was the most important for Darwin. In the first edition of The Origin of Species, he proceeded from the premise that changes in living beings occur frequently and that they are indefinite: some are of some benefit to the organism, others are harmful or useless. He believed that with regard to useful traits, everything is clear - they are mainly inherited. “Any change, no matter how insignificant, and no matter what reasons it depends on, if it is in any way beneficial for an individual of any species, any such change will contribute to the preservation of the individual and will mostly be passed on to the offspring,” he wrote .

He believed that variability itself does not contain predetermination, original benefit. At this point he saw a radical difference between his views and Lamarck’s. There is no “internal striving for perfection”, no quality of predestination inherent in living beings in “improvement due to slow desire” (the words “slow desire” belonged to Darwin himself).

However, despite the demonstrative rejection of the Lamarckian postulate, Darwin, as the above quote shows about the inheritance of “any change, no matter how insignificant, and no matter what reasons it depends on,” as long as it “was beneficial for an individual of some kind.” species,” was even at this initial moment not too far from Lamarck. He also attributed to organisms an inherent (that is, predetermined) ability to retain, in a hereditary manner, any useful deviations. The hypothesis about gemmules perceiving useful stimuli did not change the essence of the matter. Darwin did not have a single fact in favor of his hypothesis, and in this sense, Lamarck with his “organ exercise” was no weaker in argumentation than Darwin.

Having rejected the Lamarckian inheritance of acquired characteristics, Darwin did not offer anything real in return, but simply bypassed the question of what, how and when is inherited, dividing possible variability into two types. The first is definitely favorable changes that the organism “craves” and which are the result of a direct response to the action of the environment (he denied such inheritance). The second type is uncertain changes that may not occur under the direct influence of the external environment (they are inherited). At this point, he saw the main difference between his doctrine and the views of Lamarck, which he considered erroneous.

But why are the first changes not inherited, while the second ones arise and are inherited? He had no idea what hereditary structures were and how they were passed on to descendants. By calling them gemmules, he did not come one iota closer to understanding their nature. Intuitively, he may have guessed that no matter how much you cut off the tails of cats so that when they jump from chests of drawers they do not knock down Wedgwood figurines, the offspring of tailless cats will still have tails.

"Jenkin's Nightmare"

The only belief that Darwin shared with most of his contemporaries was that the transmission of heredity is akin to the fusion of a fluid, say blood. The blood of the record-breaking mother merges with the blood of an ordinary, unremarkable father - and the result is a half-breed. And if identical organisms (siblings) give birth to offspring, then this offspring will be “ pure blood"(they will later be called a pure "line").

Darwin fully adhered to these views, which is why he was so devastatingly affected by the criticism expressed in June 1867 by the engineer Fleming Jenkin in the journal Northern British Review. Jenkin was a major expert in electricity and electrical networks; with his personal participation, cables were laid in Europe, South and North America; he is considered the father of the telegraph; all his life he was the closest friend of William Thomson, who later became Lord Kelvin. A year before the publication of his devastating article on the main principle used by Darwin to justify natural selection, Jenkin became a professor in the school of engineering at University College London. With his brilliantly written article, containing not a single superfluous word, Jenkin was considered to have at one blow cut down Darwin's explanation of the inheritance of beneficial biases.

Let's say Darwin is right, Jenkin explained, and there is an indefinite variability, thanks to which some single organism has acquired a deviation that is useful for it (necessarily a single one, otherwise it is a massive Lamarckian change under the influence of the environment). But this lucky one will interbreed with an ordinary individual. This means that the “blood” will be diluted - the trait in the offspring will retain only half of the useful evasion. In the next generation, a quarter will remain of him, then an eighth, etc. As a result, instead of evolution, useful deviations will dissolve (Jenkin used the term swamping“swamping” or absorption of altered potency by unchanged hereditary potencies).

The criticism of the engineering professor caused Darwin to experience what he called “Jenkin’s nightmare.” As Darwin admitted in one of his letters, the correctness of his opponent’s reasoning “can hardly be questioned.” In a letter to Hooker dated August 7, 1860, Darwin wrote: “You know, I felt very humbled when I finished reading the article.”

In the end, after much thought, he saw only one way to respond to criticism: to admit that the environment directly influences heredity and thereby leads to change immediately large number individuals living in new conditions. Only in this case, “resorption” of new signs should not have occurred. Such recognition of the role of the massive direct influence of the environment in progressive evolution meant a decisive convergence with Lamarck’s position and recognition of the principle of inheritance of acquired characteristics.

Agreeing with the arguments contained in Jenkin’s devastating article regarding Darwin’s mechanism of inheritance of useful traits, Darwin decided to make corrections to the next, fifth, and then sixth edition of the book. “...I am so sad,” he wrote to Hooker, “but my work is leading me to a somewhat greater recognition of the direct influence of physical conditions. Perhaps I regret it because it diminishes the glory of natural selection.”

Meanwhile, a way out for Darwin already existed. Gregor Mendel had proven several years earlier that hereditary structures do not merge with anything, but retain their structure unchanged. If the unit responsible for the transmission of heredity (later called the genome) is changed, and as a result the trait it controls is formed in a new way, then all the descendants of this first hereditarily changed organism will carry the same new trait. “Jenkin's Nightmare,” which had spoiled so much of Darwin's blood, was completely dissipating, and evolutionary theory was taking on a complete form. But Darwin did not know Mendel’s work, and he himself did not think of his conclusions.

Literature:
1) Loren C. Eisley. Charles Darwin, Edward Blyth, and the theory of natural selection // Proc. Amer. Philosopher Soc. 1959. V. 03, N. 1. P. 94–115.
2) Edward Blyth. An attempt to classify the “varieties” of animals, with observations on the marked seasonal and other changes which naturally take place in various British species, and which do not constitute varieties // (London). 1835. V. 8. P. 40–53; On the physiological distinction between man and all other animals, etc. // The Magazine of Natural History(London), n.s.. 1837. V. 1. P. 1–9, and P. 77–85, and P. 131–141; excerpts from Blyth's works, as well as Arthur Grout's memoirs of him, published in the August issue of the magazine Journ. of Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1875, are given as an appendix to Eisley’s article (see note /1/, pp. 115–160).
3) Wallace A.R. Darwinism. A presentation of the theory of natural selection and some of its applications. Translation from English prof. M. A. Menzbir. Library for self-education. M.: Publishing house. Sytin, 1898. T. XV.
4) Fleeming Jenkin. Review of The Origin of Species // North British Review. 1867. V. 46. P. 277–318.

See “Science at First Hand”, 2010, No. 3 (33). pp. 88–103.
“Science at first hand”, 2005, No. 3 (6). pp. 106–119.
Née Wedgwood, daughter of the owner of the famous ceramics factory (called "Wedgwood" to this day). She was famous for many virtues, including being a good pianist and taking music lessons from Chopin himself.
The most prominent American Darwinists of the 20th century. E. Mair, S. Darlington, S. D. Gould later disputed the opinion regarding Darwin's borrowing of E. Blyth's ideas, based on the fact that Blyth talked about the selection of degraded forms, and not about progressive evolution.
Already in the 20th century. Wallace's “law” on the role of geographic isolation in accelerating the evolution of species became an integral part of the doctrine called the “Synthetic Theory of Evolution,” developed by the American scientist of Russian origin F. G. Dobzhansky. S. S. Chetverikov was the first to point out the role of geographic isolation for gene selection in 1926 in his work “On some aspects of the evolutionary process from the point of view of modern genetics.”

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