You are here Australian Academy of Science One of the fiercest
moral debates witnessed in Europe in the second half of the 19th
century was raised by the theory of the evolution of species set
out by Charles Darwin in his Origin of Species . The theory
challenged most established views on the place of humans in the
cosmos, on three fundamental points: - It suggested that Homo
sapiens, in common with all extant species, arose not by special
creation but by evolutionary development from simpler forms of
life. - It suggested that evolution was not guided by some
divinity or purpose, but by rules which govern the inheritance
of physical characteristics. These rules were not seen as having
any moral content, and the theory of evolution did not therefore
acknowledge a moral component to the pattern of life. - The
theory of evolution therefore questioned whether Homo sapiens
holds a supreme place in nature. In Western countries, the
debate persisted longest in the United States of America where
the theory of evoluti