Pre-Darwinian

  • 300

    Aristotle

    Greek philosopher, who studied marine animals and developed a model of evolution
  • 330

    The Great Chain

    Aristotle links all species in a chain starting with t base of plants moving up to all the way to humans.
  • James Hutton

    Came up with the Theory of Uniformitarianism. He said that natural forces now changing the shape of earth's surface. In different words, the present is the key to understanding the past.
  • John Ray compares humans to apes

    John Ray an English naturalist, places humans in the same category as primates.
  • Immanuel Kant's birth

    Immanuel Kant was born
  • Jean-Baptiste Lamarck is born

    the birth of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck on Aug. 1 1744
  • Benoit de Maillet

    Benoit de Maillet taught that fish were the forefathers of birds, mammals and men.
  • Maupertuis

    Said that a new species may result from the fortuitous recombining of different parts of living beings.
  • Thomas Malthus

    Theory of population growth was in the end what inspired Darwin to develop the theory of natural selection.
  • George Cuvier

    George Cuvier was largely responsible for making biology a distinct branch of science.
  • Age of Earth

    In 1774, Buffon speculated that the Earth must be at least 75,000 years old.
  • Carolus Linnaeus' death

    Carolus Linnaeus dies
  • Carl Linnaeus is Born

    Was born on 1703 May 23 in Smaland.
  • Thomas Malthus Publishes Book

    Thomas Malthus publishes his book on the Pincipal of Population.
  • Inheritance

    The theory stated that an organism could pass on to its offspring any characteristics it had acquired in its lifetime.
  • Alfred Wallace's birth

    Alfred Wallace was born
  • Principles of Geology

    Three volume book written by Charles Lyell.
  • Darwin and Wallace

    They released a joint scientific paper which introduced the concept of evolution by means of natural selection.
  • Alfred Wallace's Death

    Alfred Wallace dies