To further cement my victory, in the
Scientist category (apologize if fata)...
CHARLES DARWIN
Charles Robert Darwin FRS (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an
English naturalist[I] who established that all
species of life have descended over time from
common ancestry, and proposed the
scientific theory that this
branching pattern of
evolution resulted from a process that he called
natural selection. He published his theory with compelling evidence for evolution in his 1859 book
On the Origin of Species.
[1][2] The
scientific community and much of the general public came to accept
evolution as a fact in his lifetime,
[3] but it was not until the emergence of the
modern evolutionary synthesis from the 1930s to the 1950s that a broad consensus developed that natural selection was the basic mechanism of evolution.
[4] In modified form, Darwin's scientific discovery is the unifying theory of the
life sciences, explaining the
diversity of life.
[5][6]
Darwin's early interest in nature led him to neglect his
medical education at the
University of Edinburgh; instead, he helped to investigate
marine invertebrates. Studies at the
University of Cambridge encouraged his passion for
natural science.
[7] His
five-year voyage on
HMS Beagle established him as an eminent
geologist whose observations and theories supported
Charles Lyell's
uniformitarian ideas, and publication of his
journal of the voyage made him famous as a popular author.
[8]
Puzzled by the geographical distribution of wildlife and
fossils he collected on the voyage, Darwin investigated the
transmutation of species and conceived his theory of natural selection in 1838.
[9] Although he discussed his ideas with several naturalists, he needed time for extensive research and his geological work had priority.
[10] He was writing up his theory in 1858 when
Alfred Russel Wallace sent him an essay which described the same idea, prompting immediate joint publication of
both of their theories.
[11] Darwin's work established evolutionary descent with modification as the dominant scientific explanation of diversification in nature.
[3] In 1871, he examined
human evolution and
sexual selection in
The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, followed by
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. His research on plants was published in a series of books, and in his final book, he examined
earthworms and their effect on soil.
[12]
In recognition of Darwin's pre-eminence as a scientist, he was one of only five nineteenth-century non-royal personages from the United Kingdom to be honoured by a
state funeral,
[13] and was buried in
Westminster Abbey, close to
John Herschel and
Isaac Newton.
[14]