1. Key Points in Early Evolutionary Thinking
Plato and Fixity of Species
Aristotle and The Great Chain of Being
Teleology: Belief in a “Grand Design”
Why do these three very early ideas remain intact throughout the bulk of the history of western civilization?

2. Setting the Stage for the Scientific Revolution
Luther’s Reformation (1517)
Galileo ( ): experimentation
Bacon ( ): inductive modeling
Newton ( ): hypotheticodeduction
Locke and deism (1690)

3. Key Paradigms of Discovery and Enlightenment
Fixity of Species
Great Chain of Being
Teleology
Scientific Method
Natural Theology – Belief that the goal of science is to reveal God’s perfect plan

4. John Ray (1627-1705) Develops idea of Species
Species: Reproductively isolated organisms
Genus: Two or more groups of closely related species
Belief in Fixity

5. Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778) First Taxonomy of 11,000 species
Binomial Nomenclature
Systema Naturae (1758)

6. J.B. LaMarck (1744-1829) Built upon Buffon’s (1749) work
Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics
Published in 1809
Focuses on “felt needs” of organisms
Was best idea to date

7. Georges Cuvier (1769-1832) Competing idea to LaMarck
Based on views of fossil beds near Paris
Stratigraphy
Superposition
Catastrophism

8. Charles Lyell (1797-1875) Scottish geologist
Principles of Geology (1830)
Introduces/collects some key concepts:
Uniformitarianism
Gradualism
Advanced age of the Earth which conflicts with Ussher’s 16th century date of 4004 B.C.