10.

2 Ideas That Shaped Darwin’s Thinking

Write all things in red, sequentially in your notebook

EQ: How did the work of other scientists influence the formation of the Theory of Evolution?

1. Georges Cuvier (1813)

• Paleontologist and Naturalist
• Theory of catastrophes: Fossils show that animal and plant species are destroyed time and again by
deluges and other natural cataclysms, and then repopulated by immigrant species

2. James Hutton & Charles Lyell (mid 1700’s – early 1800’s)

• Geologists
• Uniformitarianism: the geological processes that
changed Earth in the past are the same processes
changing our landscape today.
• Earth was transformed not by unimaginable
catastrophes but by imperceptibly slow, gradual
changes, many of which we can see around us
today (erosion, volcanic activity, etc). They
therefore argued that the Earth was vastly old

3. Early evolutionary biologist, Jean Baptiste Lamarck

• Proposed a mechanism for evolution based on Use and Disuse
• When environments changed, organisms had to change their behavior to
survive. If they began to use an organ more than they had in the past, it would
increase in size over the course of its lifetime. Its offspring would then directly
inherit the longer neck. For example, if a giraffe stretched its neck for leaves, its
neck would grow longer, and its offspring would be born with the same longer
neck. Continued stretching would make it longer still over several generations.
Meanwhile organs that organisms stopped using would shrink.
4. Thomas Malthus (late 1700’s – early 1800’s)
• A human population scientist who observed that humans were being born
faster than they were dying resulting in overcrowding.
• He reasoned that if this continued, there wouldn’t be enough living space
and food for everyone which would result in competition (war, famine,
spread of disease)
• Darwin realized this applied to all organisms, not just humans

1. Answer the EQ and update your notebook

2. Complete the following new vocabulary terms: (4) Cuvier, (5) Theory of
Catastrophies, (6) Hutton and Lyell, (7) Uniformitarianism, (8) Lamark, (9) Use
and disuse, (10) Malthus