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The announcement of the theory of evolution in 1858 triggered a profound change in people's thinking. Prior to that time, there was no solid scientific theory that could explain the spread of life across the Earth, the relationships between species, or their origins. While many scientists suspected that life had arisen through natural processes, the laws had yet to be discovered. Until that happened, explanations based purely on religious beliefs seemed just as valid as any other. The work of Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace changed that, almost immediately provoking a strong backlash from theologians and many others. While a number of religious leaders had no problem with the theory--claiming that evolution might simply have been the mechanism by which a creator put life on Earth--more fundamentalist religious thinkers took it as a direct assault on religious beliefs. The controversy continues to this day.

Initially, neither Darwin nor Wallace played much of a role in defending the theory in public. Wallace was in Southeast Asia; Darwin was plagued with ill health and occupied with family matters. His infant son died just as the first paper on evolution was to be read in public. But as critics became more vocal, some of their scientific colleagues jumped to their defense. One of the most forceful was Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-95), who later called himself Darwin's bulldog in reference to his fierce support of evolution.

Strong opposition came from figures such as Richard Owen (1804-92), the first director of the Museum of Natural History in London, and Adam Sedgwick, Darwin's former geology teacher. Sedgwick followed the hard line of the movement known as natural theology, or intelligent design, which claimed that science's only purpose was to collect evidence for the existence of a creator and bring people closer to God.

On the other hand, some religious thinkers did not see the theory as a threat, as long as it left room for a creator to have set natural laws in motion that could produce the Earth and its life. Technically, evolution made no direct statements about the origins of life: Natural selection began with the first organism that had offspring. But a number of scientists believed that even the first cell may have been produced through natural processes--some type of chemical evolution--and indeed many considered the theory eliminated the need for any supernatural explanations of nature at all. As a result, many clergymen were forcefully opposed, and they condemned Darwin in sermons, stating that the theory directly contradicted the Bible and called into question the existence of an immortal soul. . .

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