On the Origin of Species

"When Darwin set sail at the end of 1831, it was only with a vague notion that all life forms, both present and extinct, were more strongly related than the Christian version of the world`s creation purported them to be. During his five-year voyage of research and discovery on board HMS Beagle, and later from his home in Kent, he painstakingly collected a mass of evidence from across the planet - from Paraguay and the Galapagos Islands to Staffordshire and Scotland - building a compelling case for a theory that would change the world we live in - and the way we look at it - for ever. The foundation of evolutionary biology and natural selection - which prompted as huge a revolution in the fields of science and religion as Copernicus`s heliocentric model of the universe and Newton`s law of gravity, Darwin`s On the Origin of Species is perhaps the most important book of scientific observation ever written."