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John Ray
The concept of genus and species was actually developed in the late 1600's by John Ray -
James Ussher
By counting the generations of the Bible and adding them to modern history, he fixed the date of creation at October 23, 4004 B.C. -
Carolus Linnaeus
He described platns and animals on the basis of physical appearance and method of reproduction -
Cuvier's Birth
Cuvier was born on 23 August 1769, at Montbéliard, a French-speaking community in the Jura Mountains then rule by the Duke of Württemberg. -
Comte de Buffon
In 1774, he speculated that the Earth must be 75,000 years old; also that humans and apes are related. He also rejected the idea that species could evolve into other species -
James Hutton
In 1785 Hutton's most important contribution to science was his Theor of the Earth -
James Hutton
Hutton's theory put forward the idea that fusion of sediments arose by the great heat which he believed to exist beneath the lower region of the earth's crust. Heat, he claimed was capable of fusing all the substances found in different types of sediment. -
James Hutton
Hutton was a Scottish Geologist, who had originally developed the theory of uniformitarianism in the 18th century. this concluded that the natural forces now changing the shape of the earth's surface have been operating in the pas much the same way. in other words ( the present is the key to understanding the past.) -
Huttons book
Hutton also had interests in the physical sciences, in particular, chemistry, physics and meteorology. Toward the end of his life he published a three-part book entitled Dissertations on Different Subjects in Natural Philosophy, (1792) where he discussed mostly meteorology, phlogiston, and the theory of matter. -
Erasmus Darwin
Erasmus was an English country physician, poet, and amateur scientist. He believed that evolution has occurred in living things, including humans, but he only had rather fuzzy ideas about what might be responsible for this change. he also suggested that the earth and life on it must have been evolving for "millions of ages before the commencement of the history of mankind." -
Thomas Malthus
Thomas Malthus published a book in 1797 called Essay on the Principle of Population in which he warned his fellow Englishmen that most policies designed to help the poor were doomed because of the relentless pressure of population growth. A nation could easily double its population in a few decades, leading to famine and misery for all. -
William Paley
He is best know of the late 18th and early 19th century divines who engaged in the pursuit of and the development of "natural theology." The project involved moving from the observable and created to the unobservable and uncreated ,i.e, God. It should be noted that the existence of God can be proven, and hence his attributes described, the project does not do anything to further the belief i Christianity which still remains the subject of revelation. -
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
Lamarck wasn't a main character in the process of evolution but he did play a key role in it. -
Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin, and English naturalist, and an author of the origin of species was born in February 12, 1809, He believed along with other scientists before him, that all the life on earth evolved (developed gradually) over millions of years fro a few common ancestors. -
Herbert Spencer
Herbert was a Victorian Biologist and philosopher who was born on April 27th, 1820 -
The Debate (Cuvier)
For the function of Cuvier's Arguement on not hypothetical relationships that should form a basis of classification. This issue, which obviously could support or contradict a theory of evolution, was part of the famous Cuvier/Geoffroy debate in 1830. the debate has often been interpreted in the retrospect of a post-darwin age as a debate over evolution -
Cuvier's Argument
Cuvier strongly opposed Geoffroy's theory that all organisms were based on a basic plan or archetype and that they blended gradually one into another. Cuvier argued instead that life was divided into four distinct embranchements (life-vertebrates, molluscs, articulates (insects & crustaceans), and radiates). -
Darwins round trip
In 1831 when Darwin was 26 years old he went on an expedition around the world. When he got to South America Darwin found fossils from some extinct animals that were closely similar to the modern species. When he got to the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific Ocean he also noticed many variation among plants and animals of the same general type as those as he found in South America. Since he found all of those on the rest of his trip he studied the plants and animals everywhere. -
George Cuvier
Cuvier advocated the theory of Catastrophism as did other scientists around this time. This held that there have been violent and sudden natural catastrophes. Some examples would be great floods and rapid formation of major mountain chains. Plants and animals living in those parts of the world where such events occurred were often killed off according to Cuvier. With this new forms of life came. -
Charles Lyell
Lyell was an English Lawyer and Geologist, who also concluded that Cuvier's catastrophism theory was wrong. Lyell believes that there are primarily have been slower, progressive changes. Around (1830-1833), Lyell documented the fact that the earth must be very old and that it has been subject to the same sort of natural processes in the past that operate today in shaping the land. Which include (erosion, earthquakes, glacial movements, volcanoes, and decomposition of plants and animals. -
The Conclusion
In 1836 after his return to london, Darwin conducted more and precise research of his notes and specimens. After lookin through them he grew several related theories. 1. evolution did occur, 2. evolutionary change was gradual, requiring thousands to millions of years, 3. the primary mechanism for evolution was a process called natural selection, and 4. the millions of species alive today came from a single original life form through a branching process called Speciation. -
Herbert Spencer
Spencer was overshadowed because of his somewhat controversial ideas. In fact, his theory of evolution actually preceded Charles Darwin's, when he wrote The Developmental Hypothesis in 1852, 7 years before Darwin's Origin Of Species! His theory was not taken into serious consideration largely because of a lack of an effective theoretical system for natural selection -
Richard Owen
In 1860, Owen tried to undercut Darwins priority by attributing evolution of the ordained becoming of living things. As own had long been an apparent opponent of evolution, this about face infuriated Darwin's supporter, expecially Huxely, who aw Owen trying to steal Darwin's credit -
Darwin passes away
in 1882 Charles Robert Darwin dies -
Lynn Margulis
In the late 1960s Margulis studied the structure of cells. Mitochondria, for example, are wriggly bodies that generate the energy required for metabolism. To Margulis, they looked remarkably like bacteria. She knew that scientists had been struck by the similarity ever since the discovery of mitochondria at the end of the 1800s -
Margulis with evolution
Margulis spent much of the rest of the 1960s honing her argument that symbiosis (see figure, below) was an unrecognized but major force in the evolution of cells
