Who is known as the father of evolutionary biology?

Charles Darwin is known as the father of evolutionary biology. His theory of evolution by natural selection explained how populations change over generations and how the diversity of life can arise from common ancestry.

Darwin developed his ideas after studying plants, animals, fossils, and geological formations, especially during the five-year voyage of HMS Beagle from 1831 to 1836. He published the evidence in On the Origin of Species in 1859. The book argued that individuals vary, some variations are heritable, and organisms with advantageous traits tend to leave more offspring.

Darwin was not the only person to propose natural selection. Alfred Russel Wallace independently developed a similar theory, and the two scientists presented their ideas jointly in 1858. Darwin is nevertheless the canonical answer because his extensive evidence and influential book established evolutionary biology as a central scientific discipline. Gregor Mendel later supplied crucial genetic foundations, while Lamarck proposed an earlier, different mechanism of evolutionary change.