NIMBioS Facilities: Darwin Conference Room (Room 103)
Charles Robert Darwin was born Febraury 2, 1809, in Shrewsbury, England. Darwin studied medicine at Edinburgh University, but later switched to divinity at Cambridge. In 1831, he joined a five-year scientific expedition as a naturalist on the survey ship H.M.S. Beagle on its journey along the South American coastline. Darwin's observations and notes from that journey ultimately led him to develop the groundbreaking theory of evolution, which he later published in his work, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859). His observations showed that certain traits can help members of a species with those traits outlive members without those traits, and that, over time, these traits become dominant and are passed from parent to offspring. Darwin wrote of his own struggle as a religious man with accepting the idea of evolution, "Disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress." During his lifetime, Darwin received numerous awards and recognitions for his research. He died on April 19, 1882, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
NIMBioS
1122 Volunteer Blvd., Suite 106
University of Tennessee
Knoxville,
TN 37996-3410
PH: (865) 974-9334
FAX: (865) 974-9461
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