Father of Modern Biology: Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin's whole life was changed by one lucky chance. In 1831, before he went on the voyage1 of the Beagle2, he was a very ordinary young man of twenty-two. No one in England—certainly not Darwin himself —had any idea of the future he had before him.
His sister Caroline gave him his first lessons. He was both lazy and naughty, and everyone was glad that he went away to school after his mother's death when he was eight.
Charles soon became a keen collector. He collected anything that caught his interest: insects3, seashells, coins and interesting stones. He said later that his collection prepared him for his work as a naturalist4.
He was not a very clever boy, but Charles was good at doing the things that interested him. He also took pleasure in carrying out experiments. But he could not learn Latin and Greek which in those days were an important part of education. He was a disappointment to his father, who was sure that he would bring nothing but shame to himself and his family.
In 1825, when Charles was sixteen, his father sent him to Edinburgh to study medicine, saying ：“As you like natural history5 so much, perhaps we can make a doctor of you.”
But Charles found the lectures boring, and the dissections6 frightening. But at Edinburgh he was able to go to natural history lectures. In 1826 he read a paper on sea-worms to the Natural History Society. This paper was his first known work on this subject.
Then his father decided to send Charles to Cambridge University to study to become a priest. With hard work, he did quite well. And, in the countryside around Cambridge, he was able to shoot, fish and collect insects.
He seemed likely to become a country priest like hundreds of others, sharing his time between his work and his interest in natural history and country life. He had a deep faith in God and a lasting interest in religion7. At this time he did not doubt that every word of the Bible was true.
Then a letter from Captain Robert FitzRoy changed his life. FitzRoy was planning to make a voyage around the world on a ship called the Beagle. He wanted a naturalist to join the ship, and Darwin was recommended8. That voyage was the start of Charles Darwin's great life work.
In those days a great many people believed that every word written in the Bible was true. Darwin hoped that the plants and animals that they found in the course of their voyage would prove the truth of the Bible story of the great Flood9.
He began to observe everything. When they got to Rio de Janeiro in South America, Charles was overcome with joy to see so many different creatures, so much life and colour. His notebooks were full of detailed observations.
Then they reached dry land at Punta Alta. There Darwin discovered his first fossils10. Why, he wondered, were there horse bones at Punta Alta, when there had been no horses in the New World until Cortez brought his from Spain11?
They came to Tierra del Fuego at the tip of South America. It was a strange place, with terrible storms. Its people grew no food, and they slept on the wet ground. Darwin observed their looks and habits.
“How can people be so different, if all are descended12 from Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden?” Charles wondered.
A trip into the mountains showed Darwin seashells at a height of 12,000 feet. Lower down were fossil trees.
“So those trees once stood by the sea,” thought Darwin. “The sea came up and covered them. Then the sea-bed rose up...”. To a man who had been taught that every word in the Bible was true, this was very puzzling.
In Chile, where Darwin saw earthquakes and volcanoes, he began to see what must have happened. The centre of the earth, he decided, was very hot. The surface of the earth was thinner in some places. It was in these places that earthquakes and volcanoes developed.
As the Beagle sailed around the world, Darwin began to wonder how life had developed on earth. He saw volcanic islands in the sea, and wondered how living things had got there.
But people who believed every word of the Bible thought that God had made all creatures and Man. But, if that was true, why did some of the fossils look like “mistakes” which had failed to change and, for that reason, died out?
On went Beagle, to Tahiti13, New Zealand and Australia. There, Darwin saw coral and coral islands for the first time. How had these islands come about14? Soon, he had the answer. Coral was made up of the bodies of millions of tiny creatures, piled up over millions of years —a million years for each island. Darwin wrote it all down in his notebooks.
After five years he was home. He was never again the healthy young man who climbed mountains and carried heavy bags of fossils for miles.
He set to work, getting his collection in order. And, in 1839, he married his cousin15, Emma Wedgwood. It was a happy marriage with ten children. He could be found working in his study, with a child beside him.
His first great work The Zoology of the Beagle was well received, but he was slow to make public his ideas on the origins16 of life. He was certainly very worried about disagreeing with the accepted views of the Church.
Happily, the naturalists at Cambridge persuaded Darwin that he must make his ideas public. So Darwin and Wallace, another naturalist who had the same opinions as Darwin, produced a paper together. A year later Darwin's great book, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection appeared. It attracted a storm.
People thought that Darwin was saying they were descended from monkeys. What a shameful idea! Although most scientists agreed that Darwin was right and that the story of Adam and Eve was merely a story, the Church was still so strong that Darwin never received any honours for his work.
Many years later, he published his other great work, The Descent of Man. He gave a lecture at the Royal Institution17, when the whole audience stood up and clapped18.
His health grew worse, but still he worked. “When I have to give up observation, I shall die,” he said. He was still working on 17, April, 1882. He was dead two days later.
現(xiàn)代生物學(xué)之父：查爾斯·達(dá)爾文
一次偶然的機(jī)遇改變了查爾斯·達(dá)爾文的一生.1831年踏上貝格爾號(hào)的航程之前,他還是個(gè)普普通通的22歲青年.沒有人,當(dāng)然也包括他自己,知道他的未來是什么樣子.
姐姐卡羅琳教會(huì)了他許多人生第一課.他是個(gè)懶惰又淘氣的孩子,8歲那年母親去世后他總算進(jìn)了學(xué)校,人人都為此而高興.
不久查爾斯愛上了收集,收集所有他感興趣的東西：昆蟲呀、海貝呀,還有硬幣和奇形怪狀的石頭.他后來說這些收集為他成為博物學(xué)家打下了基礎(chǔ).
查爾斯并不是個(gè)特別聰明的孩子,但只要感興趣的事情他都做得很棒.他還喜歡做各種試驗(yàn),但卻學(xué)不好拉丁文和希臘文,這在當(dāng)時(shí)的教育中可是很重要的一部分.父親對(duì)他頗感失望,認(rèn)定他只會(huì)一事無(wú)成,辱沒家門.
1825年,查爾斯16歲,父親將他送到愛丁堡學(xué)醫(yī),說“既然你如此喜歡博物學(xué),或許我們可以把你培養(yǎng)成一名醫(yī)生.”
但是查爾斯卻煩透了那些講座,也懼怕解剖,不過在愛丁堡他可以去聽博物學(xué)方面的講座.1826年,他在博物學(xué)社宣讀了一篇有關(guān)海船蛀蟲的文章,這是該領(lǐng)域中他第一篇為人所知的作品.
隨后他父親決定送他去劍橋大學(xué)學(xué)習(xí),將來當(dāng)一名牧師.由于刻苦努力,他學(xué)得相當(dāng)不錯(cuò),而且得以在劍橋附近的鄉(xiāng)村射獵、釣魚以及收集各種昆蟲.
看來,他像數(shù)以百計(jì)的其他學(xué)生一樣可能成為一位鄉(xiāng)村牧師,工作的同時(shí),還可以兼顧自己對(duì)博物學(xué)和鄉(xiāng)村生活的興趣.他篤信上帝,對(duì)宗教有不減的熱情.當(dāng)時(shí)他毫不懷疑《圣經(jīng)》字字真實(shí).
可是一封來自羅伯特·菲茨洛伊船長(zhǎng)的信改變了他的一生.菲茨洛伊計(jì)劃駕駛“貝格爾號(hào)”海船做一次環(huán)球航行,他想要一位博物學(xué)家加盟,有人推薦了達(dá)爾文.此次航海成為查爾斯終生偉業(yè)的起點(diǎn).
那時(shí)很多人篤信《圣經(jīng)》.達(dá)爾文希望航海過程中發(fā)現(xiàn)的各種動(dòng)植物能證明《圣經(jīng)》中有關(guān)那場(chǎng)洪水的文字確有其事.
他開始對(duì)萬(wàn)物進(jìn)行觀察.他們到達(dá)南美洲的里約熱內(nèi)盧時(shí),看到種類如此繁多的生物,那么生機(jī)盎然而色彩斑斕,查爾斯欣喜若狂,他的筆記本上全是詳細(xì)的觀察記錄.
隨后他們到了Punta Alta 的干旱地帶,達(dá)爾文在那兒發(fā)現(xiàn)了首批化石.奇怪的是,Cortez將馬從西班牙帶進(jìn)美洲之前,Punta Alta是沒有馬的,為什么卻有馬骨化石呢?
他們又去了南美洲南端的火地島.那是個(gè)奇異的地方,狂風(fēng)暴雨不斷,當(dāng)?shù)厝瞬环N糧食作物,而且在濕漉漉的地上席地而眠.達(dá)爾文仔細(xì)觀察他們的相貌和習(xí)慣.
“如果人類都是伊甸園亞當(dāng)和夏娃的后代,為什么又如此不同呢?”查爾斯感到納悶.
在海拔一萬(wàn)兩千英尺的山上,達(dá)爾文發(fā)現(xiàn)了海貝,稍低處還有樹木化石.
達(dá)爾文想：“這么說這些樹原來長(zhǎng)在海邊,海水上漲淹沒了它們,后來海底上升了…….”對(duì)一個(gè)向來接受《圣經(jīng)》字字箴言灌輸?shù)娜藖碚f,這真讓人疑惑不解.
在智利,達(dá)爾文親眼目睹了地震和火山,他開始明白其中的原因.他認(rèn)為,地球中心非常熾熱,地球表面某些地方要薄一些,地震和火山往往爆發(fā)于這些地方.
跟隨著貝格爾號(hào)做環(huán)球航行,達(dá)爾文開始思考地球上生命的演變.他看到海中的火山島,就會(huì)對(duì)那里生物的由來感到好奇.
而篤信《圣經(jīng)》的人認(rèn)為所有的生物和人類都是上帝創(chuàng)造的.可果真如此,為什么有的化石看起來像是上帝的“失誤”?它們未能適應(yīng)變化,也因此而絕跡了.
貝格爾號(hào)繼續(xù)航行至塔希提島、新西蘭和澳大利亞.達(dá)爾文在那些地方第一次見到了珊瑚和珊瑚島.這些島是怎么形成的?很快,他就有了答案.珊瑚由數(shù)百萬(wàn)微小生物的遺骸組成,經(jīng)過數(shù)百萬(wàn)年的堆積,每一百萬(wàn)年就形成了一座島嶼.達(dá)爾文將這一切寫進(jìn)他的筆記里.
五年后他回到家,不再是那個(gè)能翻山越嶺、并扛著沉重的化石一口氣行走數(shù)英里的健康小伙兒了.
他著手整理他的收集物.1839年,他和表妹艾瑪·維奇伍德結(jié)婚,婚后生活幸福,育有十個(gè)孩子.人們發(fā)現(xiàn)他在書房工作時(shí),總有一個(gè)孩子在身旁.
他的第一部大作《貝格爾號(hào)的生態(tài)園》頗受歡迎,但他卻不急于將自己對(duì)生命起源的看法公諸于世,他確實(shí)非常擔(dān)心自己的理論與教會(huì)廣為接受的觀點(diǎn)發(fā)生沖突.
所幸劍橋大學(xué)的博物學(xué)家們都勸說達(dá)爾文公開他的觀點(diǎn),因此達(dá)爾文和另一位持相同觀點(diǎn)的博物學(xué)家瓦雷斯共同發(fā)表了一篇文章.一年后,他的巨著《物競(jìng)天擇,物種起源》問世并掀起了軒然大波.
人們認(rèn)為達(dá)爾文在說人是猴子的后代,這種觀點(diǎn)簡(jiǎn)直有失體面!雖然大多數(shù)科學(xué)家同意達(dá)爾文是對(duì)的,亞當(dāng)和夏娃之說僅僅是故事而已,但教會(huì)的力量如此強(qiáng)大,這部著作沒有給達(dá)爾文帶來任何榮譽(yù).
許多年后,他出版了另一部名著《人類的演化》.他在皇家研究院作了一次演講,全場(chǎng)聽眾一致起立為之鼓掌.
他的健康每況愈下,但他工作不止,并說“我不得不放棄觀察的時(shí)候,我也就完了.”1882年4月17日還在工作的他,兩天以后與世長(zhǎng)辭.
這里有個(gè)十分簡(jiǎn)單的:1. Darwin's evolutionary theory and its impact
Charles Darwin(1809-1882) was an English naturalist and author. His Origin of Species (1859) and Decent of Men (1871) exerted a strong impact in the history of Western thought. In his books, Darwin hypothesized that over the millennia man had evolved from lower forms of life. Humans were special, not because God had created them in His image, but because they had successfully adapted to changing environmental conditions and had passed on their survival?making characteristics genetically. Survival of the fittest is the fact or principle of the survival of the forms of plant and animal life best fitted for existing conditions, while related but less fit forms become extinct.