The Origin of Species Author:Charles Darwin On December 27, 1831, Charles Darwin left Plymouth Harbor aboard the H. M. S. Beagle. For the next five years, the naturalist conducted research on plants and animals around the globe, amassing a body of evidence that would culminate in one of the greatest discoveries in the history of mankind - the theory of evolution. — In <... more »em>The Origin of Species, Darwin convincingly demonstrates the fact of evolution: that existing animals and plants cannot have appeared separately, but must have slowly transformed from ancestral creatures. Most importantly, Origin explains the mechanism that effects such a transformation: natural selection, the idea that made evolution scientifically intelligible for the first time.
One of the few revolutionary works of science that is engrossing readable, The Origins of Species not only launched the science of modern biology, but has influenced all literary, philosophical, and religious thinkers since.« less