‘Darwin was wrong” is an odd sentence with which to begin a biography of the great evolutionist — even if, in some instances, it is correct. Yes, Charles Darwin was mistaken about some things: the machinery of inheritance, for instance, or the age of the Earth, or sea-level changes in Scotland and the function of fish swim-bladders. But he was in distinguished company. Newton was wrong about quite a lot of things, as was Mendel, as was Einstein.
Even a biographer as distinguished as AN Wilson admits to having made a few errors in his time, for he converted (if that is the word) to atheism from Christianity, only to jump ship back to belief. (His reason seems somewhat unChristian: “I relish the notion that,