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Carolus Linnaeus
is considered the father of modern taxonomy for his work in hierarchical classification of various organisms. At first, he believed in the fixed nature of species, but he was later swayed by hybridization experiments in plants, which could produce new species. However, he maintained his belief in special creation in the Garden of Eden, consistent with the Christian doctrine to which he was quite devoted. He still saw the new species created by plant hybridization to have been part of God's plan, -
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Erasmus Darwin
was also a distinguished naturalist with his own intriguing ideas about evolution. While he never thought of natural selection, he did argue that all life could a have a single common ancestor, though he struggled with the concepts of a mechanism for this descent. He also discussed the effects of competition and sexual selection (see Other Types of Selection) on possible changes in species. Like Lamarck, Erasmus Darwin subscribed to a theory stating that the use or disuse of parts could in itsel -
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Jean-Baptiste Lamarck's
theory of evolution was a good try for his time, but has now been discredited by experimental evidence and the much more plausible mechanism of modification proposed by Darwin. Lamarck saw species as not being fixed and immutable, but rather in a constantly changing state. He presented a multitude of different theories that he believed combined to explain descent with modification of these changing species. -
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Thomas Malthus
theory of population growth was in the end what inspired Darwin to develop the theory of natural selection. According to Malthus, populations produce many more offspring than can possibly survive on the limited resources generally available. According to Malthus, poverty, famine, and disease were natural outcomes that resulted from overpopulation. However, Malthus believed that divine forces were ultimately responsible for such outcomes, which, though natural, were designed by God. -
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Charles Lyell
was a British lawyer and the foremost geologist of his day. He is best known as the author of Principles of Geology, which popularised James Hutton's concepts of uniformitarianism – the idea that the earth was shaped by slow-moving forces still in operation today. Lyell was a close and influential friend of Charles Darwin. -
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Charles Robert Darwin
was an English naturalist.[I] He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection. Published many books including Origin of Species by Natural selection and Descendent of man -
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Alfred Russel Wallace
one of19th century's most remarkable intellectuals co-discover the process of evolution by natural selection with Charles Darwin in 1858, but he also made very many other significant contributions, not just to biology, but also to subjects as diverse as glaciology, land reform, anthropology, ethnography, epidemiology, and astrobiology. His pioneering work on evolutionary biogeography (the study of how plants and animals are distributed) led to him becoming recognised as that subject’s father -
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Thomas Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley was one of the first adherents to Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, and did more than anyone else to advance its acceptance among scientists and the public alike. As is evident from the letter quoted above, Huxley was a passionate defender of Darwin's theory -- so passionate that he has been called "Darwin's Bulldog". But Huxley was not only the bulldog for Darwin's theory, but was a great biologist in his own right, who did original research in zoology and p -
On Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection
published by Charles Darwin with the collaboration of Alfred Wallace -
Huxley-Wilberforce debate
A meeting of the minds and beliefs on one side the revolutionary evolutionists and on the other the fading idea everything is god's creation