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John Ray
Ray's theories about fossils were mixed, but he always supported the theory that fossils were once living organisms. Some fossils, perhaps, had been formed in the Biblical flood, when "the fountains of the deep" had washed marine organisms onto the land through great fissures. However, Ray did not believe that all fossils, or even most fossils, had been formed in this way. Ray's scientific objections to the Deluge -- that fossil were found in discrete beds, and that a flood would have washed fos -
Carolus Linneaus
The leading biological scientist of the mid 18th century was the Swedish botanist Karl von Linné (Carolus Linnaeus click this icon to hear the name pronounced in Latin). His 180 books are filled with precise descriptions of nature, but he did little analysis or interpretation. This is to be expected since Linnaeus apparently believed that he was just revealing the unchanging order of life created by God. The goal of documenting change in nature would not have made sense to him. -
Erasmus Darwin
However, he publicly rejected the idea that species could evolve into other species. One of his most significant contributions to the biological sciences was his insistence that natural phenomena must be explained by natural laws rather than theological doctrine. -
James Hutton
he prevailing theory of Hutton's time was that all the rocks on Earth were formed from sediments during a great flood. Hutton theorized that a continuing process formed and destroyed the rocks and soils of earth and that the process was an endless loop. Speaking about the natural history of the earth, Hutton was quoted saying in 1788, '...we find no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end.'
In 1785 the Royal Society of Edinburgh Bulletin Volume published its famous dissertation 'The Earth -
Georges Cuvier
Cuvier carefully studied elephant fossils found near Paris. He discovered that their bones were indisputably distinct from those of living elephants in Africa and India. They were distinct even from fossil elephants in Siberia. Cuvier scoffed at the idea that living members of these fossil species were lurking somewhere on Earth, unrecognized—they were simply too big. Instead, Cuvier declared that they were separate species that had vanished. He later studied many other big mammal fossils and de -
Étienne Saint-Hilaire
Etienne had many theories , this is one of them - The segmented external skeleton and jointed legs of arthropods such as insects were equivalent to the internal vertebrae and ribs of vertebrates; insects literally live inside their own vertebrae and walk on their ribs. He is said to have stated, "There is, philosophically speaking, only a single animal." -
Charles Darwin
Darwin ultimately generalized the observation from the finches that any population consists of individuals that are all slightly different from one another.
Charles Darwin correctly inferred much about the process of natural selection when observing finches in the Galápagos island way back in the middle of the 19th century. Now, in a paper appearing Science (Grant P. R., et al. Science, 313. -
Alfred Wallace
Darwinian evolution claims that all biological life can be explained through a directionless process of “survival of the fittest” and random mutation.
Wallace, basing his theory on Darwin’s own principle of utility (the cornerstone of natural selection that says attributes in an organism will only develop when they accord the organism a survival advantage), insisted that where no clear survival advantage can be found some teleological (purposive) and intelligent agency must be the cause.
