Darwin's theory of evolution creates controversy

Historical Context Note

Litencyc Editors (Independent Scholar - Europe)
Download PDF Add to Bookshelf Report an Error

Resources

When Charles Darwin's

On the Origin of Species

was published in 1859, it was by no means the first scientific attempt to explain species change in evolutionary terms. It was, however, the first to propose a workable mechanism for this change, which he termed 'natural selection' in an analogy with domestic breeding techniques. The arbitrary and circumstance-dependent nature of the world his theory envisaged were discomforting for early readers, along with the fact that 'evolution' did not necessarily imply 'improvement'. Moreover, although Darwin deliberately refrained from discussing the implications of this theory of evolution for homo sapiens, and only mentioned 'man' once in the entire book, the most controversial implication was that humanity, far from springing directly from theā€¦

127 words

Citation: Editors, Litencyc. "Darwin's theory of evolution creates controversy". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 August 2013 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=5029, accessed 19 March 2024.]

5029 Darwin's theory of evolution creates controversy 2 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.