January 28, 2015
Traditional Views of Organisms and the Earth
Aristotle (340 BC)
-Each species fit a level of complexity like a rung of a
ladder
-He called it "scalae naturae" (scale of nature)
-His philosphy coincides with bible saying all creatures
were designed by God and therefore perfect as is.
Carl Linnaeus (1740's) Father of Taxonomy
-Taxonomy is the naming and classifying of organisms
=Binomial Nomenclature (two name system of Genus and species
- Not a ladder but more like a branched tree
-still followed belief that God mad all creatures at once and
they are perfect BUT that he made groups of similar creatures
January 28, 2015
Cuvier (1790"s) Catastrophism
-He found fossils at different depths and found the
fossils that were deeper were more unlike the current
species than those near the surface.
-He claimed that catastrophes caoused them to go extinct
and they were replaced by organisms nearby that were
already here
-Still does not allow for new speciation to occur
Hutton (1790's) Gradualism
-He dealt with geological features
Valleys were formed from the carving of rivers
Mountains were formed from the uplifting from earthquakes
-He believed that change takes place by slow and continuous
processes
*Challenges date of the earth (originally set at 6000yrs.old)
January 28, 2015
Lyell (1820's) Uniformitarianism
-He stated that the same geological processes occuring today
happened all through history
*Also challenges history of the earth to be older than 6000
yrs. as determined from the bible.
Lamarck (1820's)
-First to propose mechanism for evolution
Lamarckian Evolution
-Most famous for being WRONG!!!
-He stated that changes developed over one's lifetime could
be passed on to one's offspring.
ex. Giraffe neck-parents stretch for food in times of
drought and offspring inherit developed trait
January 28, 2015
Come up with your own examples of something changing in its
lifetime and what the outcome of the offspring would look like
(need to give a reason why the trait changed in parent and
what it does for the offspring to make them better adapted
to environment)
Timeline before Darwin
340 BC. to 1800 AD--> God created all creatures perfect and
they haven't changed since their creation
The earth is about 6000 years old
1800 Hutton and Lyell challenge the age of the earth
1820 Lamarck proposes his theory of evolution
1854 Wallace writes to Darwin about his views on evolution
1854 Darwin presents his findings with overwhelming evidence