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The concept of natural selection originally developed in the absence of a valid theory of heredity; at the time of Darwin's writing, science had yet to develop modern theories of genetics. The union of traditional Darwinian evolution with subsequent discoveries in classical genetics formed the modern synthesis of the mid-20th century.
Du Bois-Reymond's exposition resembled Darwin's: he endorsed natural selection, rejected the inheritance of acquired characters, remained silent on the origin of variation, and identified "the altruism of bees, the regeneration of tissue, the effects of exercise, and the inheritance of disadvantageous traits" as puzzles presented by the theory.
Charles Darwin in 1868. Darwinism is a term used to describe a theory of biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others. The theory states that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual's ability to compete, survive, and reproduce.
The publication of Darwin's theory brought into the open Charles Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection, the culmination of more than twenty years of work. Thoughts on the possibility of transmutation of species which he recorded in 1836 towards the end of his five-year voyage on the Beagle were followed on his return by ...
Darwin's book The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs on his theory of atoll formation was published in May 1842 after more than three years of work, and he then wrote his first "pencil sketch" of his theory of natural selection. [114] To escape the pressures of London, the family moved to rural Down House in Kent in September. [115]
Following the inception of Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection in 1838, the development of Darwin's theory to explain the "mystery of mysteries" of how new species originated was his "prime hobby" in the background to his main occupation of publishing the scientific results of the Beagle voyage.
Where the fact of evolutionary change was accepted by biologists but natural selection was denied, including but not limited to the late 19th century eclipse of Darwinism, alternative scientific explanations such as Lamarckism, orthogenesis, structuralism, catastrophism, vitalism and theistic evolution [a] were entertained, not necessarily separately.
The article was the first announcement of the Darwin–Wallace theory of evolution by natural selection; and appeared in print on 20 August 1858. The presentation of the papers spurred Darwin to write a condensed "abstract" of his "big book", Natural Selection. This was published in November 1859 as On the Origin of Species.