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Period: 450 BCE to
History of Evolutionary Theory
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450
Empedocles' Age of Monsters
The Greek philosopher Empedocles is credited with the first attempt to describe the theory of natural selection.
Empedocles wagered that all life on Earth began as strange, monstrous forms of themselves; birds with arms instead of wings, fish with human faces, lions with shells. The world, in the mind of Empedocles, was once populated by monsters, and only those that made sense, the animals of the modern era, survived.
Though this theory may sound crude, it is not so far from the truth. -
Linnaeus' Island
Father of taxonomy Carl Linnaeus had the next great idea of natural selection; that all animals originated from a few which were created by God on the Island of Paradise. Over time these animals interbred and produced hybrids, which in turn interbred and produced more hybrids, accounting for the natural diversity which we see in the world today. This theory is once again close, but not quite correct; the idea of a common point of origin, and change over time. -
Buffon's Natural Selection
George-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, developed a novel idea some two decades after Linnaeus published Diaeta Naturalis, "the passage of time has produced, by perfection and degeneration, all the other animals." This quote seems to allude to the idea of natural selection at a basic level. The idea that animals could change into other animals was exceptional for the time, and somewhat sacrilegious, which is why Leclerc was forced by the University of Paris to recant his theories. -
Erasmus Darwin's Filament
In his 1794 publishing Zoonomia, Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of Charles Darwin, had this to say, "imagine, that all warm-blooded animals have arisen from one living filament … continuing to improve... and of delivering down those improvements by generation to its posterity, world without end!” This idea, that the most fit individuals would pass their fitness through a "filament" through generations would inspire Erasmus' grandson, Charles, to further his ancestor's postulations with research. -
Lamarck and Evolution
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck proposed the first modern concept of what we could call evolution. Lamarck stated that inheritance of traits was contingent on "use and disuse" of the parents. For example, if a giraffe spent its life stretching its neck, offspring would be born with longer necks. While this theory is mostly false, parts of Lamarckian evolution can still be applied in evolutionary theory today, such as in Epigenetics -
Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species
The predominant theory of evolution by natural selection, though slightly tweaked since its conception, it is still the theory by which we explain evolutionary science to this day.
A Brief Explanation of Evolution by Natural Selection
