Biologists & Medicine · Life sciences
Charles Darwin
A would-be clergyman sailed on the Beagle, read Malthus, and spent 20 careful years building the case for evolution by natural selection, published in 1859 only after Wallace reached the same idea.
Step 1 of 6 · Overview35 min read ·
Key idea
Prereqs: The scientific method (Science). Next: Mendel. Sources: Janet Browne's two-volume biography, *On the Origin of Species* (1859), and HHMI BioInteractive.Next: 1. The path to the idea