Some people have described Charles Darwin as the "father of modern biology". Whether this is true or not, is of course a matter of opinion, but it is certainly true that Darwin's idea, of evolution by natural selection, is one of (arguably the main) the key foundation stones of modern biological sciences.
The year 2009 marks the bicentennial anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth in 1809, and as a result there are currently many celebrations and commemorations of Darwin's life and work going on. Is however a great pity is that among the general public, although many people have heard of Charles Darwin and know that he has something to do with the theory of evolution, many do not know really know what his work was about.
Voyage
Many people wrongly believe that the theory of evolution attempts to explain the origin of life, and that Darwin was the creator of this theory. Neither of these is true. The theory of evolution is not about how life first appeared (this is a different field of study known as "abiogenesis"), but rather is about how successive generations of organisms change over time. Additionally, Darwin was by no means the first person to propose an evolutionary theory, or even the transmutation of species (how one species evolves into another), but rather was responisble for providing a mechanism and an explanation (known as "natural selection") by which evolutionary processes work.
The main concept behind natural selection is actually surprisingly simple (although it does have complex and fascinating implications) - that organisms with heritable traits that are helpful to successful reproduction, will tend to predominate over organisms without such beneficial heritable traits, and thus, over successive generations, beneficial heritable traits will tend to become more common in any population. To explain this concept, Darwin used an analogy of selective breeding - pigeon breeders, over just a few centuries, have been able to produce a great variety of different domestic pigeons by selecting for particular heritable traits - and similarly he argued that nature, over many millions of years, could produce a great variety of different organisms, by its own form of selection.
Among some religious people, Darwin's ideas, and even the idea of evolution, remains highly controversial. Among the scientific community, the principle of evolution, as well as related facts such as the great antiquity of the Earth, were already commonplace by Darwin's time. Darwin's theory of evolutionary (namely natural selection), however was for many years only one several competing evolutionary theories - it was only by the 1930s, when Darwin's ideas were combined with those of Gregor Mendel in what is known as the "modern synthesis", that it began to be recognized that natural selection was indeed the driving force behind evolution.
Charles Darwin For Kids
By S. Tanna. Discover more about Charles Darwin at http://www.dinosaurjungle.com/dinosaur_scientist_charlesdarwin.php