Question

Charles Darwin was a biologist whose famous theory of evolution is important to philosophy for the effect it has had on ideas relating to the nature of men. After many years of careful study, Darwin attempted to show that higher species came into existence as a result of the gradual transformation of lower species, and that the process of transformation could be explained through the selective effect of the natural environment upon organisms. He concluded that the principles of natural selection and survival of the fittest govern all life. Darwin’s explanation of these principles is that because of the food supply problem, the young of any species compete for survival. Those young that survive to produce the next generation tend to embody favorable natural changes that are passed on by heredity. His major work that contained these theories is On the Origin of the Species, written in 1859. Many religious opponents condemned this work.