-
Period: 200 to
Before Darwin
-
344
Aristotle
Aristotle himself was an atheist, and first and foremost, a biologist. He was a very avid observer of life, particularly of fishes. Based on his close study of animals, Aristotle defined a species as a breeding group. A group of particular animals or plants that can breed, and produce offspring that eventually could reproduce. He concluded that species were fixed. -
400
the greek way on life
While the Greeks did not specifically refer to their concepts as "evolution", they did have a philosophical notion of descent with modification. Several different Greek philosophers subscribed to a concept of origination, arguing that all things originated from water or air. Another common concept was the idea that all things descended from one central, guiding principle. Aristotle suggests a transition between the living and the nonliving, and theorizes that in all things there is a constant de -
Jan 1, 1345
Medieval thinking
During medieval times, the idea of evolution was quite out of fashion, since the time was dominated by the Christian theory of special creation. This idea, which argued that all living things came into existence in unchanging forms due to divine will, was notably in opposition to the concept of evolution.
Medieval thinking was also, oddly enough, confused by the idea of spontaneous generation, which stated that living things can appear fully formed from inorganic matter. In this view, maggots c -
James Ussher
The first chapter of Genesis contains the Christian creation account. It tells of God creating the heaven and the Earth, plants and animals, and then man in God’s image. All in six days. The Bible doesn’t state when this creation occurred, but most early Christians probably assumed that this did not occur too long ago. In the 1600’s, the Anglican bishop James Ussher fixed the date of creation at 4004 B.C.E. This is the established biblical view that continues to the present. -
humans not animals
Before Darwin's time, humans were not considered part of the natural world. People saw that we resembled other animals, especially other primates like the orangutan and the chimpanzee. Still, despite the undeniable similarities between "us" and "them," only a handful of early naturalists classified humans, too, as animals. -
Pierre Laplace
the astronomer Pierre Laplace, who proposed a purely materialistic explanation for the origin of the solar system. He said that the solar system was once a big rotating gas nebula, and as it rotated, centrifugal and centripetal forces would pull in matter to the center, which became the sun, but as it pulled in, it left little blobs of material that collapsed into the different planets. This was called the nebular hypothesis. -
Jean-Baptiste
Jean-Baptiste born on August 1, 1744, in the village of Bazentin-le-Petit in the north of France. Was always being attacked for his work. -
what people had in mind abou the natural world
Before Darwin was born, most people in England accepted certain ideas about the natural world as given. Species were not linked in a single "family tree." They were unconnected, unrelated and unchanged since the moment of their creation. -
Erasmus Darwin
Charles Darwin's grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, was one of the leading intellectuals of eighteenth century England, a man with a remarkable array of interests and pursuits. Erasmus Darwin was a respected physician, a well known poet, philosopher, botanist, and naturalist. -
Carl Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus, also known as Carl von Linné or Carolus Linnaeus, is often called the Father of Taxonomy. His system for naming, ranking, and classifying organisms is still in wide use today (with many changes). His ideas on classification have influenced generations of biologists during and after his own lifetime, even those opposed to the philosophical and theological roots of his work. -
Immanuel Kant
Developed a concept of descent that is relatively close to modern thinking; he did in a way anticipate Darwinian thinking. Based on similarities between organisms, Kant speculated that they may have come from a single ancestral source. In a thoroughly modern speculation, he mused that "an orang-outang or a chimpanzee may develop the organs which serve for walking, grasping objects, and speaking-in short, that lie may evolve the structure of man, with an organ for the use of reason, which shall g -
Abraham Trembley
Detected that polyps, which are very simple sea creatures, could regenerate. By cutting them into pieces they regenerated the whole. They could be flipped inside out and still operate. People saw this as “almost spontaneous generation”. Philosophers took this as scientific evidence for their speculations. -
sicence in the making
By 1800, European naturalists knew a great deal about plants and animals. They collected specimens, carefully studied them and even classified similar species in groups. -
Thomas Malthus'
According to Malthus, populations produce many more offspring than can possibly survive on the limited resources generally available. According to Malthus, poverty, famine, and disease were natural outcomes that resulted from overpopulation. However, Malthus believed that divine forces were ultimately responsible for such outcomes, which, though natural, were designed by God. -
the chimpanzee
Naturalists could see that, particularly beneath the skin, a chimpanzee looks a lot like a human—but the idea that we might somehow be related to apes was almost unthinkable -
Alfred Russel Wallace
English naturalist, evolutionist, geographer, anthropologist, and social critic and theorist -
Stanley Miller
Stanley Miller conducted his famous (or infamous) experiment. For decades, scientists had speculated whether the complex organic compounds characteristic of living things could have somehow been generated spontaneously on the early Earth. Spontaneous generation of organic compounds can’t happen today. This is because organic compounds are too fragile. -
gfsfsd
-
fvuhkfgusfuo
-
jksdfhfsdjkfsd
