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Aristotle 384 BC
(384 BC-322 BC)
-Greek philosopher.
-Profound influence on philosophical and theological thinking.
-Static/perfect. -
Carolus Linnaeus
(1707-1778)
-Swedish physician & botanist.
-Developed a hierarchial classifications scheme & binomial nomenclature
-Taxonomy -
James Hutton
-Scottish geologist who offered an alternative to catastrophism.
-Proposed that the Earth was millions of years instead of a few thousands old.
-Preferred hypothesis for profound geologic change = gradualism -
Jean Baptiste Lamarck
(1744-1829)
-Hypothesized that traits of species are not immutable, they can evolve.
-Stated that changes are adaptations to environment are acquired in an organisms lifetime.
-Acquired changes were passed to offspring.
LAW OF USE AND DISUSE
-If you don't use it, you lose it-traits could be passed to offsprings. -
Thomas Malthus
(1766-1834)
-English demographer.
-Hypothesis: plants anaimals are capable of producing far more offspring than resources can support; "struggle for existence" is an inescapable consequence.
-Each species struggles for: food, living space, mates. -
Georges Cuvier
-French anatomist who largely developed paleontology, the study of fossils.
-Deeper strata (old rock) contain older taxa.
-Preferred hypothesis for profound geologic change= catastrophism.
-Stated that species disappeared due to a catastrophic evernt of the earth's crust. -
Charles Lyell
(1797 - 1875)
-Scottish geologist who incorporated Hutton's gradualism into the theory of uniformitarianism.
-Geological processes at uniform rates building and wearing down earth's crust. -
Charles Darwin
(1809-1882)
Natural Selection
-Overproduction
-Variation: inheritable features vary from individual to individual
-Survival of the fit: those with more adaptive traits tend to survive longer and/or produce the most offspring; these are the "naturally selected" -
Gregor Mendel
(1822-1884)
-Founder of the new science of genetics.
-Inheritance=passing on traits. -
Alfred Russel Wallace
(1823-1913)
-English bilogist who also (independently) conceived of natural selection as the principal mechanism of adaptive evolution.
-Organisms evolved from common ancestors