On the Origin of Species
Descent with modification by natural selection, published under pressure.
- When
- Era
- Industrial, Holocene
Darwin works on the theory for twenty years and publishes in November 1859 only after Alfred Russel Wallace sends him an essay containing the same idea. Natural selection requires no designer and no direction: variation, inheritance and differential survival suffice. It is the single most consequential idea in biology, it applies to us, and Darwin knew exactly how it would be received, which is why he waited.