The concept of evolution was introduced and developed most famously by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in the mid-19th century. They independently conceived the theory of evolution by natural selection, which explains how species change over time through variation and survival of the fittest. Darwin published his influential work "On the Origin of Species" in 1859, which laid out the mechanism of natural selection as the driver of evolutionary change. Their work marked a crucial shift from earlier ideas and is considered the foundation of modern evolutionary theory.
Before Darwin and Wallace, other thinkers had proposed early ideas about species changing over time, including Charles Darwin's grandfather Erasmus Darwin and French naturalists like Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon. However, the comprehensive, evidence-supported theory with a mechanism was formulated by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace.
