The Evolution of Evolutionary Thought

(Historical perspective on species)

Plato

For every species there is a perfect type, and therefor unchanging.
Typological species concept

Aristotle

Great Chain of Being
o Simplistic beings led to more complicated beings
o Humans are the apex of all beings
Although species are fixed, they had an organization sequence from
small and simple to large and complex.

Charles Lyell: British Geologist

Principles of geology in 1830
The earth changes
Very gradual change over very long time periods

Georges Cuvier: French Naturalist

Documented fossil animals unlike any living species
Concluded that the animals had gone extinct

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck:

Proposed that species change over time through the inheritance of
traits acquired from use or disuse
(Ex: giraffe stretching neck over generations)
First real widely accepted way of how animals come to be over time


Reverend Thomas Malthus

Human population grows faster than we can provide food and water
Population grows geometrically but the food grows arithmetically


Charles Robert Darwin

Naturalist: documented new species
HMS Beagle
o Principle charge: map South America
o Captain: Robert Fitzjoy
o 5 year voyage
Noticed similar living and extinct species from the same area
Notice trends that types of organisms were sorted geographically
Galapagos Islands:
o Finches: beaks
o Beaks differed for what the birds ate
o Also seen in mockingbirds
When Darwin returned, he published a zoology of his voyage
After returning to England, he began a closer inspection of Galapagos
mockingbirds and finches
Natural selection acts on variation
3 principles will account for all:
o Grandchildren like grandfathers
o But tendency to small changes especially with physical change
o Great fertility in proportion to support of parents
New species arising from old, through descent with modification
Species are related forming a kind of family tree or genealogy
Alfred Russell Wallace and Darwin presented the Theory of
Evolution together
Darwin published the Origin of Species
o Species form through descent with modification
o Genealogical perspective


Perception of Species:

Plato Darwin
Unchangeable Changeable
Minor variations insignificant Minor variations essential
Typological view
(Perfect Species)
Population view
(Not the individual, but the population)





Evolution: a change in allele frequency in a population
over time

Types of Population Evolution:
o Selection (Natural)
o Mutation
o Genetic Drift (Chance or randomness)
o Sexual Selection (Non-random mating)
o Gene Flow (Immigration into population vs. emigration leaving
population)


The Pattern of Evolution
What support is there that species change over time?

Extinction
Fossils
Transitional forms
Vestigial traits
Physiological change