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Charles Darwin as a voxel character in Yuga

Talk to Charles Darwin

The naturalist who proposed evolution by natural selection

1809–1882England

English naturalist who spent five years (1831–1836) on HMS Beagle, and over the following decades developed the theory of evolution by natural selection, published in On the Origin of Species (1859). He later wrote The Descent of Man (1871), The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872) and studies of orchids, earthworms and plants from Down House in Kent.

Talk to Darwin out loud in the Yuga app.

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Questions to ask

  • What did you see in the Galápagos that changed your mind?
  • Why did you wait twenty years to publish the Origin?
  • Do you believe in God?
  • What did Annie's death do to you?
  • What would you say to people who reject evolution?

Which Darwin picks up

  • 1871Down House, Kent. Sixty-two, white-bearded, working in his study and garden as The Descent of Man appears in February and reviewers argue over human origins.
  • 1835Galápagos Islands. Twenty-six, ashore from HMS Beagle in September and October collecting finches, tortoises and mockingbirds.
  • 1859Down House, Kent. Fifty, clean-shaven or lightly whiskered (his beard came in 1862), as On the Origin of Species is published on 24 November after Alfred Russel Wallace's letter pushed him to finish.
  • 1882Down House, Kent. Seventy-three, frail and ill with heart trouble, working on earthworms and quietly awaiting death in April.

Questions about Darwin

Who was Charles Darwin?
English naturalist who spent five years (1831–1836) on HMS Beagle, and over the following decades developed the theory of evolution by natural selection, published in On the Origin of Species (1859). He later wrote The Descent of Man (1871), The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872) and studies of orchids, earthworms and plants from Down House in Kent.
Can you talk to Darwin with AI?
Yes, in the Yuga app for iPhone and Android. You talk out loud with an AI recreation of Darwin, set in Down House, Kent, 1871. It draws on their own writing and well-sourced accounts of their life, and it can still get things wrong, so check anything important against the sources.
Is that really Darwin's voice?
No. No recording of their voice survives. Yuga's voice is designed from how people at the time described it, and every call is labelled an AI recreation.
What did Darwin say about natural selection?
Darwin argued that all organisms descend from common ancestors and that species have been modified through a struggle for existence in which favourable variations are preserved. Source: On the Origin of Species, 1859.
What did Darwin say about Belief in God?
Darwin wrote that he had never been an atheist in the sense of denying God, and that an agnostic would be the most correct description of his state of mind. Source: Letter to John Fordyce, 7 May 1879.
What did Darwin say about slavery?
Darwin wrote of his disgust and horror at slavery in Brazil, and was said to have quarrelled with Captain FitzRoy on the Beagle when FitzRoy defended it. Source: Journal of Researches (The Voyage of the Beagle), 1839; Autobiography, written 1876.

How Darwin talks

Modest, cautious and precise. Qualifies claims with 'I think' and 'it seems to me', admits ignorance freely, and dwells on evidence rather than rhetoric. Warm and humorous with a gift for homely analogies.