One evening, Sally Hawkins, a Catholic commoner living in the Netherlands, went to a nearby meeting place to have a cup of tea with some friends. While at her table, Sally overheard a group of men discussing something she'd never heard about; a theory called Darwinism. Intrigued, she went over to the men and asked what this was which they talking about. When they shared with Sally that Darwin's theory proposes an evolutionary process for all living things, progressing from stage to stage in an adaptive manner, she angrily threw her tea cup on the ground, and walked out of the establishment. The men, unfazed by the woman's emotional response, continued on with their discussion. And as for Sally Hawkins' reaction to Darwin's proposal? It was merely the first of millions, if not billions, of similarly angry and uniformed responses that would be heard from opposers for centuries to come. .
Darwinism is scientifically defined as a biological evolution theory developed by Charles Darwin, a European scientist, asserting that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual's ability to compete, survive, and reproduce. .
While some European scientists disagreed with Darwin's theory, others embraced it and used the theory to create their own scientific findings and to incorporate it into their societies. As Darwin's theory became more publicly known, some people began to understand the reasons for evolution, and his theories affected religion and views of science moving forward. Most European scientists expanded on and publicized Darwin's theory of evolution and natural selection, including in Ireland, the Netherlands, and France. The following factors will be compared and contrasted between countries because of their reception of Darwinism: in Ireland, through the Protestant church and how Catholics rejected the idea, in the Netherlands, three specific groups who made up a political-religious divide between progressive liberals and conservative Christians, and in France, how early theories of evolution and natural selection gave way to Darwin's theory.
