What aspects of the Darwinian model were revolutionary for their time?

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Answer 1

The idea that one species could evolve into another species. He also provided a mechanism, natural selection.

Answer 2

"Darwinism" came to stand for an entire range of evolutionary (and often revolutionary) philosophies about both biology and society. One of the more prominent approaches was that summed in the phrase "survival of the fittest" by the philosopher Herbert Spencer, which was later taken to be emblematic of Darwinism even though Spencer's own understanding of evolution was more Lamarckian than Darwinian, and predated the publication of Darwin's theory. What we now call "Social Darwinism" was, in its day, synonymous with "Darwinism" — the application of Darwinian principles of "struggle" to society, usually in support of anti-philanthropic political agendas. Another interpretation, one notably favored by Darwin's half-cousin Francis Galton, was that Darwinism implied that because natural selection was apparently no longer working on "civilized" people it was possible for "inferior" strains of people (who would normally be filtered out of the gene pool) to overwhelm the "superior" strains, and corrective measures would have to be undertaken — the foundation of eugenics.

In Darwin's day there was no rigid definition of the term "Darwinism", and it was used by opponents and proponents of Darwin's biological theory alike to mean whatever they wanted it to in a larger context. The ideas had international influence, and Ernst Haeckel developed what was known as Darwinismus in Germany, although, like Spencer Haeckel's "Darwinism" had only a rough resemblance to the theory of Charles Darwin, and was not centered around natural selection at all.

While the reaction against Darwin's ideas is nowadays often thought to have been widespread immediately, in 1886 Wallace went on a lecture tour across the United States, starting in New York and going via Boston, Washington, Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska to California, lecturing on what he called Darwinism without any problems.[5]

Answer 3

Basically it was incompatible with the church. The Bible says the earth was created in six days, which the church has long insisted on taking literally.

Darwin was really the first to suggest, with evidence, that creatures changed over time, and that it required an immensely long time to happen.

The church insisted he was wrong and did not believe in God. All this eventually lead to the "intelligent design" idea as a compromise.

Answer 4

he attacks the church with his doctrines. the man doesn't intend it, but his ideas create speculation to the doctrines the church preached.