eselam said:
are you sure this information is correct?
i didn't kow any of that, thanks for sheding some light for us muslims gnostic.
Of course the information is correct.
Darwin travelled around the oceans, on the ship called HMS Beagle, especially on his 2nd voyage, which took him 5 years, before returning to England in 1836.
He didn't just go to the islands of Galápagos, but also to South America, Australia and Africa. But it is his stop on the Galápagos islands that contributed largely to Darwin's knowledge on evolution, through his studies on the animals and plant life on the islands.
His researches didn't just come from being stuck in the classroom.
It was only after his voyages and sorting his notes to compile his major works (books), and took him years before the publication.
On the Origin of Species wasn't published until 1859, 23 years later.
As I said before, other scientists in the 20th century have been to the islands, and confirmed his findings, from geologists, zoologists and botanists.
You have to understand that his books on evolution is not about the origin of life, but on the origin of species. He tried to explain why there are different species, and done so successfully. It was the Christians who found threatened by his discoveries, because at that time, they believed in Genesis' story literally.
Today, some Christians know that the earth is far more ancient than they once thought. There are evidences of primitive mammals (ignoring dinosaurs for the moments) that are so different to that of today.
Do you know what a wombat is?
Well, they discovered fossils of giant wombat, extinct and known as by its scientific name -
Diprotodon, which as large as a brown bear or hippoptamus. They (Diprotodon) became exitinct 40,000 years ago.
And you know of horses. The horses belong to the taxonic genus Equus, and family, known as Equidae. There are other genus of Equidae, including Hippidion, were smaller and different than the horses known today. The Hippidion existed in South America, before they became extinct 8000 years ago. The Hippidion not only belonged to different species to the horses, but different genus.