English naturalist who developed the theory of evolution by natural selection — publishing On the Origin of Species (1859) — after a five-year voyage on HMS Beagle and 20 years of research — demonstrating that all life descends from common ancestors through a process of variation, inheritance, and selection.
Provided the unifying theory of all biology — natural selection explains how adaptation, diversity, and the appearance of design arise without a designer; Darwin's mechanism (heritable variation + differential reproduction = selection) has been confirmed by genetics, molecular biology, and paleontology, and organizes all of biology.
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