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INTRODUCTION

Theories explaining biological evolution have been bandied about since the ancient Greeks, but it was not until the Enlightment of the 18th century that widespread acceptance and development of this theory emerged. In the mid 19th century english naturalist Charles Darwin - who has been called the "father of evolution" - conceived of the most comprehensive findings about organic evolution ever1. Today many of his principles still entail modern interpretation of evolution. I've assessed and interpreted the basis of Darwin's theories on evolution, incorporating a number of other factors concerning evolutionary theory in the process. Criticism of Darwin's conclusions abounds somewhat more than has been paid tribute to, however Darwin's findings marked a revolution of thought and social upheaval unprecedented in Western consciousness challenging not only the scientific community, but the prominent religious institution as well. Another revolution in science of a lesser nature was also spawned by Darwin, namely the remarkable simplicity with which his major work The Origin of the Species was written - straightforward English, anyone capable of a logical argument could follow it - also unprecedented in the scientific community (compare this to Isaac Newton's horribly complex work taking the scientific community years to interpret2). Evolutionary and revolutionary in more than one sense of each word. Every theory mentioned in the following reading, in fact falls back to Darwinism. DARWINIAN THEORY OF BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION Modern conception of species and the idea of organic evolution had been part of Western consciousness since the mid-17th century (a la John Ray)3, but wide-range acceptance of this idea, beyond the bounds of the scientific community, did not arise until Darwin published his findings in 19584. Darwin first developed his theory of biological evolution in 1938, following his five-year...