8/31/2023

DEVELOPMENT
OF
EVOLUTIONARY
THEORY

OVERVIEW OF PRESENTATION
• Briefly review pre-Darwinian history of thought on species

• Explore important influences on Darwin

• Discover how Darwin developed his revolutionary idea

• Evolutionary change through natural selection

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Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life

URL: https://fod-infobase-com.libproxy.txstate.edu/p_ViewVideo.aspx?xtid=40443&tScript=0

Streams from Alkek Library

Full video shown in class on Thurs, Aug 31

The slides that follow were not presented in class but are to be used to fill out your notes on
the individuals and ideas that preceded and influenced Darwin as well as Darwin’s conception
of natural selection as a mechanism for evolutionary change.

Pre-Darwinian History

Scala Natura
or
The Great Chain of Being

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L'Uomo Vitruviano by Leonardo da Vinci

Pre-Darwinian History (c. 1490)

Renaissance period (14th-17th centuries)

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr.

Illustration from Fasciculus Medicinae Nicolaes Tulp by Rembrandt (1632)
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(1491)

Pre-Darwinian History
Renaissance period begins systematic investigations of the
natural world
Continues into the 18th and 19th centuries and produces better
understanding of
• History of the earth
• geology
• paleontology
• Nature of species and biological variation
• taxonomy and systematics
• evolutionary change in species
• demographic patterns
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History of Earth - Geology

Charles Lyell
(1797-1875)

Principles of Geology
(1830)

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History of Earth - Geology

Uniformitarianism - small everyday occurrences
can, given enough time, create large scale geological
changes

and

these geological processes operated the same in the

past as they do today

“Deep Time”
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History of Earth - Paleontology

Baron Georges Cuvier (1769-1832) Extinction

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History of Earth - Paleontology

Catastrophism

European Woolly
Mammoth
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Nature of Species - Taxonomy

Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778)
Systema Naturae, 1735-1758

Binomial nomenclature
(genus and species)

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Evolutionary Change in Species

Jean Baptiste de Lamarck
(1744-1829)

Inheritance of acquired characteristics

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Evolutionary Change in Species

Erasmus Darwin
(1731-1802)

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Demographic Patterns

Thomas Malthus
(1766-1834)

Principle of Population
(1798)

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Darwin’s Revolutionary Idea

Charles Darwin
(1809-1882)

1825-1831 – Medical School, then Seminary

School

1831-1836 – Naturalist aboard the HMS Beagle

1837-1855 – Darwin at Down House, reading,

communicating, observing and refining his ideas

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Darwin’s Synthesis
From Lyell’s Principles of Geology (1830)…..

• Earth is very, very old

• Enough time for significant

change in species

Exposed bedrock in Quebec that contain some rare

earth elements that date to 3.8 to 4.28 billion years ago

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Darwin’s Synthesis
From Malthus’ Principle of Population (1798)….

• More young are born than reach adulthood

• Limited resources prevent some young from reaching

adulthood

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Darwin’s Synthesis
Based on his own observations (HMS Beagle)
and reading Malthus, Darwin had
two critical observations

• Variation is the norm in nature

• More young are born than
survive to adulthood

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Darwin’s Synthesis
Four conclusions drawn:
• There must be fierce competition to survive

• Certain variations give some individuals an advantage

or competitive edge

• Favorable variations are inherited and passed on

• Over a long time, favorable variations can accumulate

and produce new species

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Darwin’s Synthesis

Darwin called this process of change in a

species natural selection

And believed that as a mechanism of

evolution, it could ultimately produce new
species

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Darwin’s Synthesis
Alfred Russel Wallace
(1823-1913)

Papers presented
at the
Linnaean Society
July 1, 1858
(although neither was present)

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Darwin’s Revolutionary Idea

On the Origin of Species, 1859
• All organisms have descended with
modification from common ancestors

• The chief agent for modification is

natural selection operating on variation
among individuals

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Darwin’s Revolutionary Idea:

Natural Selection
• Variations in some individuals may confer greater
likelihood of survival and reproduction

• Those individuals who are more likely to survive and

reproduce contribute those advantageous variations
to the next generation

• Across the generations these small changes can

ultimately add up to large changes in a species
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Evolutionary Theory
After a long process of systematic observation and evaluation with
independent validation, Darwin put forth natural selection as the
mechanism of evolutionary change in species

Today, we understand that natural selection is the driving force of

evolutionary change, but it is not the only way that evolution
occurs…..

But that is a discussion for another day after we have a better

understanding of genetics and inheritance

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Questions?
Interested in Darwin’s work? Explore Darwin Online (Darwin-online.org.uk)

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