Whether we think of Charles Darwin as a scientific colossus who changed our understanding of the natural world or as an evil genius bent on destroying theology-based notions of that world, his work forced us to reconsider the way we view ourselves and life around us. Arguably, Darwin impacted human knowledge and views of the human condition to a greater degree than other profound thinkers, including Albert Einstein and his mind-bending theories of relativity and Sigmund Freud with his highly original conception of the unconscious mind and mechanisms of repression as well as his creation of psychoanalysis. Approve of him or not, there is no denying that Darwin rattled the civilized world to its very foundations. But he did not set out to become either famous or infamous.

Charles Robert Darwin was born in 1809, which makes this year the 200th anniversary of his birth. By chance, 2009 is also the 150th anniversary of the publication of his seminal work, The Origin Of Species. Darwin was born into a financially comfortable if not wealthy family that was socially secure and well connected. His grandfather was Erasmus Darwin, famous in his own right as scientist and doctor, his father was also a respected physician, and his mother was the daughter of Josiah Wedgwood, an influential entrepreneur whose fine china still bears his name. Darwin married one of his Wedgwood cousins, which further cemented him into well-to-do, upper-class English Victorian society. Thus, he did not have to concern himself with money, a significant reality that gave him the time and freedom to live as a country gentleman while he pursued the research and wide-ranging thought that resulted in his discoveries.

Darwin was slated to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather and father and become a doctor. But during his medical classes at Scotland’s Edinburgh University, he shrank from the violence, brutality, and bloodletting of medicine at the time. His obvious distaste for human dissection and especially surgery (this was before the use of anesthetics; even chloroform wasn’t introduced into medicine until 1847) forced Charles’ father to realize that his son would likely never be a physician. This was the period when Darwin, who showed a sporting enthusiasm even at a young age, became more serious than ever about guns, dogs, and hunting, which as Charles himself admitted resulted in a veritable bloodbath of game. There remains an unsettled paradox in his reluctance to inflict pain and suffering on humans yet kill animals by the hundredweight. This was also the time when his father, truly angry at him for the first time, delivered the “shooting, dogs, and rat-catching” pronouncement. At that point, Darwin agreed that his father was “very properly vehement against my turning (into) an idle sporting man, which then seemed my probable destination.”

Along with this hunting bent, Darwin had long been fascinated by natural history. His avid pursuit of this interest, both in and out of the classroom, was another reason why he neglected his medical studies at Edinburgh. After his medical school debacle, in 1828 his father sent him to Cambridge University in hopes of him becoming—ironically—a clergyman and settling down into a respectable life as a country parson. But it was at Cambridge that a friend introduced Darwin to beetle collecting, a pursuit that exploded into a passion for natural science that ranged from entomology to ornithology (his skill with a shotgun made him a proficient collector of birds), botany to geology, all of which served him well during the next phase of his life. The Anglican church was about to lose a country parson and science to gain a giant.

During December 1831, Darwin, by way of family influence, boarded HMS Beagle and joined what amounted to an around-the-world scientific expedition. He would not return to England until the voyage ended nearly five years later in October 1836. Darwin was on the Beagle as a self-financed gentleman companion to Robert Fitzroy, the ship’s captain: Fitzroy was 26 years old, Darwin 22. Although he had no official capacity, within a short time Darwin took over as the ship’s naturalist and—a critically important point—because he paid his own way, he retained ownership of his exceptionally wide-ranging and substantial five-year collection of natural history specimens.

Throughout the remainder of his years, Darwin considered this voyage to be the defining experience of his entire life, and there is little doubt that he was correct in that his time aboard the Beagle provided him with compelling evidence that in years ahead would forever alter the foundations of biology. Common Darwin lore has it that much of the basic evidentiary material and thought underlying his theories came from his time in the Galapagos Islands. Although he observed both subtle and stunning variations among and between similar types of life on the islands—as well as in other locations—if he had an evolutionary Eureka moment, it probably occurred after the voyage, not during it.

The idea of evolution had been floated long before Darwin, who is famous, in part, because he proposed natural selection as a mechanism. Darwin conceived his theory of evolution and natural selection only a few years after his return from the voyage of the Beagle and could have published the results by the mid-1840s but decided to hold off and build a stronger case. By waiting, he was nearly scooped.

In 1858, Alfred Russel Wallace sent Darwin an essay describing essentially the same ideas, which prompted a joint presentation of their theories to a prominent professional society. Darwin followed up in 1859 with the publication of The Origin Of Species and, with a battery of supporting evidence, established that he had developed his theory of natural selection independently. Darwin’s theories that evolution occurs, that its gradual change requires immense amounts of time, that life forms arise through speciation, and that its primary mechanism is natural selection slowly gained acceptance. That said, in some quarters, Darwin’s theories are controversial to this day, particularly as they deal with a time continuum of multi-millions of years and the implication that humans, like every other organism on earth, are the result of evolution.

By way of debate, research, testing, and modification over time, Darwin’s discoveries became the life sciences’ unifying theory by providing a rational explanation for our planet’s species diversity, the relationships between life forms, and how organisms became what they are. Scientific disciplines such as animal and plant ecology and evolutionary and conservation biology have deep roots in Darwin’s work. Each time we look at a bat or a beaver, a pheasant or a woodcock, a white-winged or mourning dove, we have a more complete understanding of that creature’s place in the natural scheme because of Darwin.

But his works on evolution and natural selection weren’t his only scientific contributions. After he returned from his Beagle voyage, he devoted the rest of his life (he died in 1882) to one research study or another; from selective breeding of pigeons to exhaustive examination of barnacles and earthworms, plant pollination, human and nonhuman emotional expressions, coral-reef formation—the list of his accomplishments is long. To be sure, Charles Darwin’s life achievements are remarkable, his legacy profound.

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