Darwin, Charles


A British naturalist of the nineteenth century. He and others developed the theory of evolution. This theory forms the basis for the modern life sciences. Darwin's most famous books are The Origin of Species and The Descent of Man.

Notes for Darwin, Charles

Darwin's ideas were later misrepresented by some social theorists, who developed the notion of Social Darwinism to justify practices such as child labor in nineteenth-century England.

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The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.