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John Ray
John Ray published important works on botany, zoology, and natural theology. He His classification of plants in his Historia Plantarum, was an important step towards modern taxonomy. Ray rejected the system of dichotomous division by which species were classified according to a pre-conceived, either/or type system, and instead classified plants according to similarities and differences that emerged from observation. He was the first to give a biological definition of the term species. -
Carolus Linneaus
The Linnaean taxonomy is widely used in the biological sciences. Linnaean taxonomy classifies living things into a hierarchy, starting with domains or kingdoms. Kingdoms are divided phyla (singular: phylum) or divisions for plants. Phyla are divided into classes, then orders, families, genera (singular: genus) and species. Groups of organisms at any of these ranks are called taxa, or phyla, or taxonomic groups. -
Georges-Louis de Buffon
He was a French naturalist, mathematician, cosmologist, and encyclopedic author. His works influenced the next two generations of naturalists, including Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Georges Cuvier. Buffon published thirty-six quarto volumes of his Histoire Naturelle during his lifetime; with additional volumes based on his notes and further research being published in the two decades following his death. It has been said that he was the father of all thought in natural history. -
James Hutton
He originated the theory of uniformitarianism, a fundamental principle of geology, which explains the features of the Earth's crust by means of natural processes over geologic time. Hutton's work established geology as a proper science, and thus he is often referred to as the "Father of Modern Geology". -
Erasmus Darwin
Erasmus Darwin gave the first glimpse of his theory of evolution in a question at the end of a long footnote to his popular poem, "The Loves of the Plants" (1789). His final long poem, "The Temple of Nature" which was puplised after he died in 1803 was considered his best poetic work. It centres on his own conception of evolution. The poem traces the progression of life from micro-organisms to civilised society. -
Jean Baptist Lamarck
He was a French naturalist. Lamarck stressed two main themes in his biological work. The first was that the environment gives rise to changes in animals. He cited examples of blindness in moles, the presence of teeth in mammals and the absence of teeth in birds as evidence of this principle. The second principle was that life was structured in an orderly manner and that many different parts of all bodies make it possible for the organic movements of animals. -
Georges Cuvier
Cuvier was a major figure in natural sciences research in the early 19th century and was instrumental in establishing the fields of comparative anatomy and paleontology through his work in comparing living animals with fossils. Cuvier's work is considered the foundation of vertebrate paleontology, and he expanded Linnaean taxonomy by grouping classes into phyla and incorporating both fossils and living species into the classification. Cuvier is also known for establishing extinction as a fac -
Étienne Saint-Hilaire
Geoffroy endorsed a theory of saltational evolution that "monstrosities could become the founding fathers (or mothers) of new species by instantaneous transition from one form to the next." In 1831 he speculated that birds could have arisen from reptiles by an epigenetic saltation. Geoffroy wrote that environmental pressures could produce sudden transformations to establish new species instantaneously -
Charles Lyell
He is best known as the author of Principles of Geology, which popularised James Hutton's concepts of uniformitarianism, the idea that the Earth was shaped by the same processes still in operation today. His scientific contributions included an explanation of earthquakes, the theory of gradual "backed up-building" of volcanoes, and in stratigraphy the division of the Tertiary period into the Pliocene, Miocene, and Eocene. -
Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin developed the first theory of a naturalistic mechanism for evolution, that of natural selection, it explains the diversification of life through a lengthy process of change by adaptation. -
Alfred Wallace
He is best known for independently conceiving the theory of evolution through natural selection. He was considered the 19th century's leading expert on the geographical distribution of animal species and is sometimes called the "father of biogeography". Wallace was one of the leading evolutionary thinkers of the 19th century and made many other contributions to the development of evolutionary theory besides being co-discoverer of natural selection.
