Darwin

Pre-Darwinian Timeline

  • 320

    Aristotle's Great Chain of Being

    Aristotle's Great Chain of Being
    Sometime in the mid 300 B.C. age Aristotle classified all species in a chain, starting with plants moving all the way up to humans.
  • 500

    Xenophanes's early theories

    Xenophanes's early theories
    He often examined fossils and put forth many theories based on these however most were quickly proven wrong after advances in science.
  • 520

    Anaximander"s theory B.C.

    Anaximander"s theory B.C.
    Anaximander of Miletus, wrote a text in which he explained he's idea of evolution, which said that life started as slime in the oceans and eventually moved to drier places
  • Jan 1, 1580

    James Usher

    James Usher
    By adding together all the generations listed in the Bible Usher dated creation to October 23rd, 4004 B.C. This was much debated in his life time.
  • Ray Links primates and humans

    Ray Links primates and humans
    English naturalist, John Ray, places humans in the same category as primates, which ment that people were related to primates.
  • Ray publishes book

    Ray publishes book
    John Ray publishes his book entitled, Historia Plantarum. Which described many species of plants and talked about species having common ancestors.
  • Comte de Buffon

    Comte de Buffon
    Buffon said that living things do evolve over time. He felt that this was a result of influences from the environment or even by chance. He also believed the Earth to be much older than 6000 years, which is how old it was said to be in his time.
  • Immanuel Kant

    Immanuel Kant
    This German philosopher was basically the Darwin of his day. His theories were very similair and he was often told he was very wrong and even sinful
  • Carolus Linnaeus

    Carolus Linnaeus
    Linnaeus published "Systema Naturae" which gave a way to classify all organisms. He felt God had made a certain order to classify things in.
  • Malthus, Darwin's inspiration

    Malthus, Darwin's inspiration
    The theories of Thomas Malthus stated that overpopulatio led to lesser humans to have to live in poverty. Which inspired Darwin to come up with his theory of natural selection
  • Erasmus Darwin publishes Zoonomia

    Erasmus Darwin publishes Zoonomia
    Erasmus Darwin publishes his book, Zoonomia. In which he states his theory of evolution. Charles got most of his interest in evolution from Erasmus
  • Hutton introduces uniformitarianism

    Hutton introduces uniformitarianism
    James Hutton publishes two papers saying that " our present is the key to our past"
  • Lamarck states his first theory

    Lamarck states his first theory
    Jean-Baptiste Lamarck of France, published Zoonomia, which states that all "warm-blooded" animals have evolved from one living anscestor
  • Cuvior rejects Lamarck's theories

    Cuvior rejects Lamarck's theories
    Because of many flaws that Lamarck's theories had Geoarges Cuvior and many other rejected his theories.
  • Lamarck's second theory is published

    Lamarck's second theory is published
    Philosophie Zoologique was published by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. In this he introduced his idea that certain traits were inherited, however this theory was later proven to be wrong.
  • William Charles Wells

    William Charles Wells
    As a front runner, or sort of "spokes person" for evolution, Wells often spread the ideas and even spoke infront of the Royal Selection.
  • Alfred Wallace

    Alfred Wallace
    Wallace is mostly famous for pulishing his own theory of natural selection. People typically give credit to Charles for the theory of evolution but Wallace's was actually published first.
  • Lyell Supports Hutton's theory

    Lyell Supports Hutton's theory
    Charles lyell publishes 3 volumes of his book "Principles of Geology" which agrees with Hutton's theory of uniformitarianism.
  • Darwin and Wallace collaberate

    Darwin and Wallace collaberate
    Charles DArwin and Alfred Wallace worked together on a paper describing examples of natural selection.
  • Darwin Publishes his theory

    Darwin Publishes his theory
    Charles Darwin publishes famous "The Origin of Species" which talks of natural selcetion. Darwin was harshly made fun of for this.