On the Origin of Species, published by Charles Darwin in 1859, is considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology. Darwin's book presented evidence that the diversity of life arose through a branching pattern of evolution with common descent caused by the mechanism of natural selection. Prior to its publication various evolutionary ideas had been proposed to explain new findings in biology, but the English scientific establishment, closely tied to the Church of England, believed that species were unchanging parts of a designed hierarchy and had rejected ideas of transmutation of species and of humans being related to animals. The book attracted widespread interest, and generated scientific, philosophical, and religious discussion. This debate contributed to establishing secular science based on scientific naturalism. Within two decades there was widespread scientific agreement that evolution had occurred, but until the modern evolutionary synthesis in the 20th century there was much less agreement on the significance of natural selection.
Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Origin_of_Species
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1190:
Conrad of Montferrat became de jure uxoris King of Jerusalem after marrying Queen Isabella I. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad_of_Montferrat
1863:
American Civil War: As part of the Chattanooga Campaign in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Union forces captured Lookout Mountain, helping them to begin breaking the Confederate siege of the city. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lookout_Mountain
1922:
Irish Civil War: Author and Irish nationalist Robert Erskine Childers was executed by firing squad by the Irish Free State for illegally carrying an automatic pistol. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Erskine_Childers
1971:
After collecting a ransom payout of US$200,000, "D. B. Cooper" leaped out of the rear stairway of the airplane he had hijacked over the Pacific Northwest and disappeared. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper
1974:
A group of paleoanthropologists led by Donald Johanson discovered a 3.2-million-year-old skeleton of an Australopithecus afarensis in the Afar Depression in Ethiopia, nicknaming it "Lucy" after The Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australopithecus_afarensis
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
claptrap (n): Empty verbiage or nonsense http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/claptrap
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
Writing, when properly managed, (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a different name for conversation. --Laurence Sterne http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Laurence_Sterne