PSYC-10000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Susannah Darwin, Shrewsbury School, Erasmus Darwin
Document Summary
Darwin published his theory of evolution with compelling evidence in his 1859 book on the origin of species. By the 1870s, the scientific community and a majority of the educated public had accepted evolution as a fact. Darwin"s scientific discovery is the unifying theory of the life sciences, explaining the diversity of life. Charles robert darwin was born in shrewsbury, shropshire, on 12 february 1809, at his family"s home, the mount. He was the fifth of six children of wealthy society doctor and financier robert darwin and susannah darwin (n e wedgwood). Darwin and josiah wedgwood were both prominent abolitionists. Erasmus darwin had praised general concepts of evolution and common descent in his zoonomia (1794), a poetic fantasy of gradual creation including undeveloped ideas anticipating concepts his grandson expanded. Both families were largely unitarian, though the wedgwoods were adopting. Robert darwin, a freethinker, had baby charles baptised in november 1809 in the.
