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Bishop Ussher
This man lived a long time ago and estimated the Earth to be 4004 b.c. years old. -
Spontaneous Generation
The famous theory that states that organisms rised from non living matter. -
Linnaeus´s
Carl von Linne was a Swedish botanist that wanted to classify all the organisms on Earth. His system was separated by kingdoms, classes, orders, genera ans species. -
Comte de Buffon
Georges Louis Leclerc states in his Natural History that species evolve or change according to natural laws. Buffon suggested that humans and apes are biologically related and that all species (like our’s) evolved or come from the same ancestor. -
Natural Theology
Archdeacon William Paley was the creator of Natural Theology. There he states that not only God exists but that his attributes are part of complex forms of nature. Paley says that the eye, for example, is so well made and complex that it must have been designed by an intelligent designer, like a watch. -
Lamarck
Jean-Baptist de Lamarck was a french naturalist that proposed that organisms change over time (evolve) to become more complex. He also states in his piece Philisophie Zoologique, that something inside living things, the “vital force”, as he called it, helped creatures adapt to the environment by the use or not of certain traits. THese would then be passed to other generations. -
Cuvier
The french naturalist Georges Cuvier tried to explain how the creation of canals and mines brought out from the land fossils of rare creatures. He states that creatures from the present are way to complex to be evolved naturally. Cuvier thought that catastrophes wiped out certain life forms from the past and insists that life “stood still” between those catastrophes. -
Lyell
Charles Lyell argued the theory that organisms development took a vast time by saying that slow-moving, gradual process explains the geology from the Earth. -
Beagle Voyage
The voyage Charles Darwin made in which he began to be really interested (more than before) in anatomy and origin from different species and the origin, comitting himself into nature's laws. It ended in1836, 5 years later. -
Neanderthal
The discovery of a fossil skull that was very similar to a regular human skull now-a-days and still, significantly different, started a debate, in Germany, based in the thought that all humans come from Adam and Eve. -
Wallace
A british explorer called Alfred Russel Wallace wrote to Darwin looking for advice on his theory of how species evolved. This theory was the natural selection theory in which Darwin based a lot. -
Origin of Species
The book Charles Darwin published proposing a good and coherent theory about evolution: just as domestic animals evolve through breeding "artificial selection", species evolve through "natural selection". -
Ape Debate
Darwin had written about his theory for species' evolution, including human. Other scientists, like Thomas Henry Huxley, had criticized him for bestializing the human kind (to categorize humans with animals or beasts). -
Evolution Accepted
A while after Charles Darwin published his book, The Origin of Species, scientist argued over that theory, a lot. Later on, evolution became main in science and many people accepted it and started publishing he theory in magazines, newspapers and even in religious publications. Even now, the theory is still doubted. -
Decedent of Man
After Darwin wrote his first book, he sterted being more interested in human evolution and the importance of "sexual selection". These ideas were published in his next book. -
Horse Fossils
Thomas Huxley had gone to the U.S. to give a lecture when he visited a fossil hunter in Yale called Othniel Charles Marsh and together, they started discovering a lot about an ancient horse fossil that Marsh had found. They developed a theory that horses evolved from creatures with five, then four toes calle Eohippus. -
Darwin´s Burial
Darwin passed away and was laid to rest in peace in Ingland near the grave belonging to Isaac Newton. By this point many people had reconciled with Darwin and accepted his theory of evolution. -
Radioactivity
Antonie Henri Becquerel discovered radioactivity which lead to many astonishing calculations of Earth's age. Now, we know that Earth is about 4.3 billion years old, good enough time for Darwin's evolution theory process to occur. -
Pilldown Man
Finding a fossil skull part-human, part-primate was a main key to proove Darwins theory of evolution as it was the missing piece that compared humans with primantes meaning the evolution we, humans, went through. During the 1950's it was discovered that the fossil was actually fake. -
First Anti Evolution Bill
William Jennings Bryan started a movement in six Southern and bordered states considering anti evolution proposals.
"it is improper and subversive to the best interest of the people to teach as true darwinism or any hypothesis that links man in blood relationship to any form of lower life." -
Man-Like Ape
Raymond Dart made a public notification that a man-like creature had been found in Taungs, South Africa. There is also an explanation for some damages made in the skull of the found creature that appear to be too graphic to religious people. -
Textbooks (Censored)
Many biology textbooks refering to evolution had stopped being published and/or selled in the South and West because publishers feared the loss of sells. -
Anti-Evolution Bills Spread
There were bills made all over the country to stop the evolution theory progress in science. In some states, this bills were aproved, mostly in the south and the west. This event ended in 1930. -
Tennessee Bill
In Tennessee, there was a bill aproved ans signed by Governor Austin Peay made into law that states that schools must teach the evolution of men instead of the "divine creation". -
Neo Darwinism
This is an updated theory combining modern knowdlege of genetics with what Darwin had come up with for evolution. It also has a new model of evolutionary process called " evolutionary synthesis" becoming the foundation of biology. -
Evolution Shunned
With many rules and regulations inputted by anti-evolutionists in schools, scientist began to be considered because less than half of the middle schools tought anything about evolution in early 1940's. -
Supreme Court
In 1947 the Supreme Court ruled that nor them or anyone can implement the teaching of one religion more that any other forsing public schools to stop teaching religious instructions. All this ended in about 1948. -
Pope Pios XII
Pope Pios XII writes a paper where he considers that both the Divine Creation and evolution might have happened. He states that maybe the body evoluted from other living matter when our souls were made and come from God. -
Origins of Life
Ayoung graduate student in 1953 called Stanley Miller, created an experiment using soap and electric light to produce amino acids. With this experiment, it was shown that, maybe, life had producen itself naturally, not because of a holly forse like God. -
DNA
In the 20th century, probably the most important discovery that happened was the discovery of a double-helix DNA structure that explained the mistery of how genes work and what they are. -
Human and Apes
Genetics have allowed us throughout history to make various discoveries including the comparation of human with african apes and orangutans. To the this research, it turned out that humans are about 98% genetically similar to african apes. -
Supreme Court on Evolution
An ew case is put into the Supreme Court where teaching evolution was prohibited though, many people icluding a biology teacher called Susan Epperson protested for it to be legal. This ended by stopping the laws barring the teachings of evolution. -
DNA Codes
With the technological advances in science, by this point it was easier to look fir information and new discoveries in a molecular way inside the DNA including more information about evolution. -
Textbook Disclaimer
During 1994 and 1995, there is a new requirement to be able to teach evolution in schools. The requirement consists in informing the students that evolution is "controversial and "a theory, not a "fact". -
Pope John Paul II
Just before the Pope John Paul II actually became Pope, his predecessor Pius XII accepted the theory of evolution in the name of the Catholic Church. Pope John Paul II went further and complimented it. -
Science Standards
Studies shew that many people, at that time, still avoided many things related to evolution. In twelve states, people banned the word from their vocabulary (no one wanted to say "evolution") and four states avoided any topic related to evolution. -
Human Genome
It now is a fact that human beings share more that 98% of our genes with chimpanzees. This is because of the first draft of the Human Genome. Now we also know that we share genes also with fruit flies and yeast. Genomics gives scientists more tools to understand how organisms have evolved.