ABSTRACT
Charles Darwin is an odd choice for a hero. Plagued by everything from boils to self-doubt, he hardly fits the picture of a revolutionary figure. However, the theory of evolution developed in Darwin’s On the Origin of Species is among the cornerstones of modern science. Almost all of Darwin’s ideas were based on what he was able to observe on his voyage around the world on the Beagle and on walks around his country home in England. Darwin was obsessed by the question of how one explains the incredible variation in the living world. The theory of evolution begins with the observation that there is significant variety within populations. In On the Origin of Species , Darwin wrote little about human evolution. Only at the end of the concluding chapter did he write that, on the basis of his theory, “light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history”.
