The first known use of the word "evolution" in English was in 1679, when it was used by Thomas Browne in his book Religio Medici. The term had been used earlier by French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes (1596-1650) and German naturalist and physician Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707-1788). In the 19th century, Charles Darwin popularized the concept of evolution through his work On the Origin of Species. Since then, evolutionary theory has been widely accepted as a scientific explanation for the diversity of life on Earth. Evolutionary biology is now a major field of study, with researchers exploring topics such as genetic drift, natural selection, speciation, and adaptation.