Last reviewed: 20 October 2026

Charles Darwin

1809–1882

English naturalist whose theory of evolution by natural selection is the foundation of modern biology.

What they got right

He went looking for evidence against his own theory, wrote down every objection straight away, and gave a whole chapter of the Origin to its difficulties.

Skill it shows

Cognitive biases

Practise this skill

Also: Evidence and sources

I had, also, during many years followed a golden rule, namely, that whenever a published fact, a new observation or thought came across me, which was opposed to my general results, to make a memorandum of it without fail and at once; for I had found by experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from the memory than favourable ones.

Autobiography (1887) Source

…ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge…

The Descent of Man (1871), Introduction

Worth knowing

His theory of inheritance (pangenesis) was wrong. 'Survival of the fittest' was coined by Herbert Spencer, and the popular 'most adaptable to change' quote is not his.

Try it yourself

Write down one belief you hold strongly. Now list the best piece of evidence AGAINST it. Was that harder to think of than evidence for it?

More about Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin was a naturalist, not a professor of philosophy, and his work reset questions about human nature, chance, and design. On the Origin of Species argues for descent with modification by natural selection. The final paragraph finds grandeur in that view, including in the struggle the postcard leaves out. The Descent of Man extends the argument to human beings and opens with a dry remark about ignorance begetting confidence. 'Survival of the fittest' is Herbert Spencer's phrase, which Darwin later used, and it is not a sentence about the species most responsive to change. That sentence is Leon Megginson's, from 1963, a management gloss. Darwin belongs in this library because philosophical lines are constantly pinned on him, and because the real lines are better and less useful to a strategy meeting. He is cautious in public where he is sure in the detail. The caution is part of the evidence. Reading the last page of the Origin will do more for your ear than a decade of quotations that wanted his beard.

Descent
Species are not fixed. They diverge from common forms.
Selection
Variation, inheritance, and differential survival. Not a moral ranking of persons.
Grandeur
His own word for the view, in the last paragraph, struggle included.