The Origin of Species (1859) by Charles Darwin laid the foundation for the science of evolutionary biology that revolutionized our understanding of nature and mankind’s place within it. Published in 1859, the original title was On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life and was abbreviated for the sixth edition in 1872. The central premise is that the diversity of life results from a branching pattern of evolution from a common source and that populations change over the generations to adapt to changing circumstances through natural selection.  Various notions of “transmutation” had been proposed prior to publication and were considered controversial, as they stood in opposition to the long held belief that the diversity of life was the product of an unchanging design and that humans were distinct from all other species.  Darwin was an established scientist, and the work, which was written for the general reader, included exhaustive documentation from decades of research and analyzed the theory from philosophical and religious perspectives as well as scientific. As such, it was taken seriously, gained widespread interest, and helped the campaign to secularize science.  During the late nineteenth century the notion of evolution became generally accepted, but it wasn’t until the mid twentieth century that the significance of natural selection was fully understood as biologists and statisticians combined Darwin’s work with Mendel’s genetic theories to arrive at the modern evolutionary synthesis.  This central notion is now the unifying concept of the life sciences.

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