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Period: to
Evolution Scientists
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Carolus Linnaeus
A swedish botanist, Carolus Linnaeus developed the classification system by grouping species into small groups by their similarities. Unlike people at that time, he believed that some might have evolved through hybridization -
Georges Louis Leclerc de Buffon
A French naturalist, Georges Louis Leclerc de Buffon propesed that species shared ancestors instead of arising separately and he also believed that the earth is much older than 6000 years old. -
Erasmus Darwin
An English physician, Erasmus Darwin proposed that all the species descended from same ancestor and more complex forms of life arose from less complex forms. He also translated Carolus Linnaeus's work from Latin into English. -
George Cuvier
A French naturalist and zoologist, Cuvier standed on the side which disagreed with the idea of evolution. Instead, he proposed catastrophism and that species do not evolve. However, he developed Linnaeus' classification of species and made the base of positivism biology. -
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
A French naturalist, Lamarck proposed that species evolve to perfection and complexity thus no species became extinct but instead evolved into different forms. The most important idea was that traits acquired pass throgh generations. -
Charles Lyell
An English geologist, Charles Lyell did not adopt Charles Darwin's idea of evolution at first. But later, he combined his idea on geology( uniformitarianism) with Darwin's idea on evolutionpublishing 'Principles of geology'
