Karl Ernst von Baer zFirst rigorous generalization in comparative developmental biology

Karl Ernst von Baer zFirst rigorous generalization in comparative developmental biology yShowed that adults of more recently evolved species often differ markedly from adults of more primitive species yArgued that embryos of more recently evolved species often closely resemble the embryos of more primitive species

Charles Darwin - born in 1809

Charles Darwin Circumnavi- gated the globe aboard the H.M.S. Beagle

Charles Lyell zHighly influential geologist zIntroduced the notion of uniformitarianism zGave Darwin the gift of time

Thomas Malthus zIn 1798, he wrote An Essay on the Principle of Population

Charles Darwin 1838 Darwin’s notebooks mention natural selection

Charles Darwin 1844  Darwin drafts a manuscript laying out his ideas at length.  The manuscript remains unpublished until...

Alfred Russel Wallace 1858 Wallace sends Darwin a letter from Malaysia with idea of natural selection described

Charles Darwin 1859 Publishes The Origin of the Species that claims that natural selection causes adaptive evolutionary change

Gregor Mendel 1866 zUses pea genetics to show that genes behave like particles present as two copies yDarwin either failed to read Mendel’s paper or did not realize the significance of the paper

Ernst Haeckel Publishes on general morphology of organisms and states his biogenetic law: ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny

Correns, Tschermak and de Vries 1900 Rediscover Mendel’s laws