early ideas on evolution

• Hutton's ideas

  • actualism
  • theory that the same geological processes occurring now also occurred in the past
  • Contradicts catastrophism
• Lamarck

  • organisms respond to "felt needs"
  • Hypothesized that characteristics acquired by an individual during their lifetime are transmitted to their offspring
  • characteristics of each generation would be determined in part by at least by all that happened to the members of the preceding generation
  • all of their modifications would be passed on
  • lead the way of the acceptance of other, more realistic ideas
• Lyell

  • uniformitarianism
  • earth's surface is always changing and continues to change through similar, uniform, and very gradual processes
• what did Lyell's ideas lead to

  • earth is very old
  • dramatic change can occur if given enough time
• Buffon

  • species could change over time and these changes can lead to new organisms
• Linnaeus

  • relatively few species through hybridization and interbreeding lead to many
• Erasmus Darwin

  • helped foster Darwin's ideas
  • Believed that we all started as one organism
• Malthus

  • resources have linear arithmetic growth while populations have exponential growth
  • resources will provide a limiting factor for populations
• Cuvier

  • named the study of fossils paleontology
  • Many fossils are of extinct species
  • Most complex organisms are found closer to the top of the strata and that these were more likely to resemble living organisms
  • all life on earth was created at a single time also believed that species themselves did not change
• Catastrophism

  • cuvier
  • local/global catastrophes could explain extinctions in particular areas