I remeber my teacher photocopying us a sheet from the macquarie revision guide and i put it in my notes
Leonardo do Vinci (1452—1519)—found fossil shells high up on mountains and decided they were once living organisms that had been buried before the mountains were raised.
George-Louis Buffon (1707—1778)—suggested that life was older than the 6000 years it was widely thought to be and ihat organisms had changed over time.
Carolus Unnaeus (1707—1770) the binomial naming system. He suggested that organisms could change through hybridization. He grouped organisms together to show their similarities. He did not infer there was evolution from one form into another.
Erasmus Darwin (1731—1802)—(grandfather of Charles) suggested that the strongest and most active individuals would survive and continue a species.
Jean-Baptist Lamarck (1744—1829)—suggested that features acquired during the life of an organism could be passed on to its offspring (the inheritance of acquired characteristics). For example, a giraffe stretching its neck to get food from a higher branch will develop a longer neck over the course of a lifetime and pass this characteristic on to its offspring. This theory, although later discredited, continued the thought that led to the modern theory of evolution.
JamesHutton (1726—1797)—suggested that geological change happens gradually over long periods of time (the theory of gradualism); for example, a river can gradually carve a volley.
Cuvier (1769—1832)—-documented Fossils in rock strata and noted that each layer was characterized by different types of fossils. Fossils in the deeper layers were the most different from modern species. He also noted that extinctions were common.
Charles Lyell (1797—1875)—suggested that geological processes occurred at the some rate in the present as they did in the past (the theory of Uniformitarianism).
Alfred Russel Wallace (1823—1913)— independently came up with the theory of natural selection and wrote to Darwin to discuss it. This prompted Darwin to publish his theory.
Charles Darwin (1809—1882)—developed his theory of evolution based on observations he made on a journey to South America on HMS Beagle. By the early 1 840s he had documented the main points of his theory but was reluctant to publish his work because of the political and religious upheaval it would cause.
Creationalism: The belief that all things are created from and by God NOT a theory of evolution
Punctuated equilibrium (proposed by Gould): See dot point 4.2.7
He finally published on the origin of species by
- Means of natural selection in 1859 after Wallace wrote to him outlining the same theory. Darwin’s theory made two major points:
a) Species were not created in their modern form
b) Natural selection is the mechanism of change.
Religion dominated and anything against the church was considered wrong.
