Charles Darwin is not a monster like some people think.

He started out training for medical school, then went to become a minister. Although he fell away from his "christianity" later, he still commented that something of some great intellegence had to be behind all of this. He never said God didnt' exist, and he still supported the church even though he quit attending and practicing.

Darwin was a pioneer in some of the work he did. Origin of Species is great, and if you haven't read it, don't comment on it. Another great one is The Descent of Man.

The rumor about him converting back or having some "revelation" at the end of his life, has never been proven true, his family has stated it is untrue.

There is no doubt about evolution as a biological and genetic process, but Darwin himself is not without fault in my view.

His thesis about the "blind watchmaker" is rather specious at best. Basically Darwin believed that the universe was completely random, that there is no central logic to scientific processes. I tend to agree with other philosophers like Leibniz who believed that there is a built in tendency towards greater order, greater energy efficiency and ultimately greater development.

There is an element of random behavior in the universe, but the actual quantifiable processes are rather predictable. You're not going to disprove the laws of gravity or thermodynamics on a random whim. There are processes that can correctly predict certain behavior, therefore things don't happen totally randomly.

There's no doubt that Darwin's work on evolution was groundbreaking, and it doesn't in any way disprove the existence of God as the prime mover. There are other elements of his work that questionable at best though.

Published groundbreaking work. . .since his time some amazing revelations concerning life's origins on Earth have been examined and studied with far greater instruments and evidence than available to the man himself.

Happy birthday Big D. He shared a birthday with Lincoln and there is no doubt who was the greater emancipator.

énorme

He has carried on the work started earlier. The Law of Faunal Succession was established by earlier paleontologists. Some of them were Robert Hooke (1635-1703), William Smith (1769-1839), G. L. LeClerc, Compte de Buffon (1707-1788), Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles) 1731-1892, and finally J. P. A. de Lamarck (1744-1829).

These scientists had studied the sedimentary rocks and determined that animal-fossil fauna change steadily upward through the sequence of the ages. At younger levels, the fossils more nearly resembled modern animals. Evolutionary change was the only rational explanation.

The early explanations did not hold up well and Darwin's work, The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection,  partially solved the riddle by identifying the general process. He was unable to explain the mechanics, and those mechanisms, gene mutation, isolation, symbiosis, and many others,  were not identified until the 20th Century.

The work continues.

You can drop this name anywhere and everyone will know who it is. Now what happens after depends on the crowd.

If nothing else, he has pissed off more bible thumpers than anyone else!

Darwin based his ideas on observation and study, not fairy tales.

I dare anybody to show me evidence supporting evolution. From a logical standpoint: The designee must have a designer, nothing cannot create something, it would violate the first law of thermodynamics, a scientifc FACT. Another way of putting it, an effect must have a cause. For example, if you look at a broken window, obviously something caused that window to be broken, it didn't break itself. That is only one of the problems with the THEORY of evolution, it violates too many laws of science and is just not logical. If you ever get a chance, listen to Dr. D James Kennedy tear evolutionists to shred. One more thing: What I absolutely love is evolutionists hang on archaeological discoveries, but what is so great is those discoveries are disproving evolution more and more.

The theory of evolution is Darwin's greatist gift to God. In the theory of evolution, Darwin says that the only things that separates us from the apes is our ability to properly punctuate a sentence (so I guess someone on this list is an ape), and our ability to discern between fact and fiction: evolution = fact; bible = fiction.

DARWIN IS A RETARD! Im not an ape thats crap. The bible is the truth. God is the creator.

I'm a Darwinmaniac! WEEEEE! And the bible is a bunch of crap. You guys giving him a one star are just pissed because he proved your beliefs false. "HAHAHA!" Although, I do not agree with his theory of natural selection; being that there are still religious fanatics with us to this date. Go figure?

By modern defintion the man was not even a scientist, he didn't even have a degree, in fact he was a univesity drop-out. His greatest and only achievement is that he was bold enough to write a 'scientific' document which claimed that God or a supranatural power had nothing to do with our existence. It was this that gave his hipothetical theories a place in 'science'.

I can't believe this guy made a science list. He was trained in theology which shows why his theory is so grossly unscientific. He created a faith based theory that people accept that don't want to accept the other options. No proof in the fossil record, his theory works contrary to the laws of physics, there hasn't even been enough time in 20 billion years to produce 1 DNA molecule by chance let alone the diversity of life we see. And where are the millions of transistory species that would be here if it were true. Darwinists have had trouble coming up with a dozen skeletons without fraud. This book wasn't even anout science. It was meant to justify racism in 1859. The original name was "The origin of the species by means of natural selection for the preservation of favored races". That was before we had microwave book names. Darwin wasn't one of our better imports.

The man was a frigin genius. If he was alive today,it would not even be a debate. He could help validate all his findings with the technology we have today.

You either love this guy or hate him based on how faithful you are, or do you? There is much evidence for evolution; the mudskipper for instance looks just like the walking fish some people put on their cars. We have tailbones. And in the womb human babies go through a process that looks very similar to the evolutionary line (at one point we look more like reptiles). And then the recent gene splicing shows that we are 98% similar to chimpanzees, something that was suspected long before anyone knew what genes were. And finally we look a lot like apes. A lot of the Bible is allegorical, perhaps God wants us to rise above our violent, lawless animal roots. Of course, evolution is not a religion. I'm not mindlessly defending his divine glory like the creationists would say, I just think it's worth being taught in schools and creationism is wrong.

In truth, He drew very grand and actually very implausible conclusions from many mistaken and problematic observations. Evolution and natural selection while interesting and potentially plausible theories have a little too much fundamentalist zeal (Non-Religious) and bigoted polemics to convince me.

We were created. The Bible said so.

OK, enough with the finches!! He was far from being a "great" scientist. His theory was nothing but the regurgitation of other people's thoughts before him. He hardly thought up new concepts, and his theory does not prove anything. All speculations!! Of course there is such thing as evolution, but there are a lot of guesses made without enough factual evidence!

i'm related to him! honestly..... and josiah wedgewoood!

This is more of a rant on Evolution being the reason that man exists on earth, but they had nothing on evolution on this page (except for the movie). Granted, Darwin's theory is correct as far as animals sharing similar character traits with other animals. However, these traits will not change one form of species into another totally different form....as in apes became man. What a croc. There is a limit to the Evolution theory....but then of course, man is willing to believe anything without doing ALL their research.

Charles Darwin is the man that I have to thank for the fact that I can be an atheist if it pleases me. He was incontestably brilliant and I have only one thing to say to the people who have not read at least part of his wonderful book: Stop it, stop it now! You do not know anything until you have read parts of both the Bible (which, though I don't take it seriously, has some amazing stories) and "The Origin Of Species". Have we forgotten a certain Mr. Scopes? A Mr. John T. Scopes, who was arrested and tried for thinking his own thoughts and speaking them out loud? Nothing ever would have gotten anywhere without Charles Darwin. Take care, everyone!

Darwin was undoubtedly a brilliant and radical thinker,and of course the theory of evolution was an extremely important challenge to existing thought,and has impacted significantly on the way we perceive the world and creation(though as has been pointed out,a huge number in different countries and religions still dismiss the theory).It may,though,surprise many to learn that Alfred Wallace,Darwin's contemporary, came to similar conclusions independently and was in fact the first to publish the theory,causing Darwin to follow with his own "Origin of the Species".While Darwin remains world famous,Wallace's name languishes in obscurity(he was hindered by lacking Darwin's Social connections or class background.Darwin made joint presentations with him,and should not be strongly blamed for his neglect since).He led an extremely interesting life,also travelling widely-the Far East and South America(much of his writings were destroyed on a ship fire there)-was concerned with unjust social conditions and was an important botanist.While not wishing to diminish Darwin,I hope one day Wallace receives due recognition.

The father of evolutionary theory.

Charles Darwin was an awsome individual and was a genius. People who think he is the antichrist do so because their faith is so weak that they can't look at the facts and realize what his theory(which is actually a fact) of evolution really is. People who think that his theory says that humans came from monkeys don't understand the theory. Also he never stated that we came from ape's or from anywhere else, if you would have read on the origins of species CastleBee you would have known that.

Darwin didn’t even have a clue as to the enormous complexity of the human cell when he hypothesized about the origin of the human race. The more that is discovered the more I am amazed that there is anyone left who can actually take him any more seriously than you would those people who once clung to the idea that the world was flat. Yet, people do and with the same stubborn fervor of snake handling religious psychos.

Darwin is probably the best & most important scientist ever lived. Einstein was like a new-born little brother compared to this giant figure! His thoughts was revolutionary, actually they still are in some modern environments, for instance among the ultra religious people or among the many that don't want humans to be a part of the nature, but as the souvereign raised about it. This makes him even more important!! His discoveries are still, though slowly, revolutioning the world! I think humans aren't better than other animals, only (i believe) "more important" in the sense that one can't help all creatures in the world, there are to many to do that. There are even to many humans to secure them their basic & fundamental human rights...

I am not fond of evolutionists. According to them we are technically monkeys. It boggles the mind.