Darwin and evolution

GET1020

Dr John van Wyhe

Contents © J. van Wyhe et al. The reproduction of

these slides is against national and international law.
Illegal distribution or sale will be prosecuted.
Georges Cuvier (1769-1832)

• comparative anatomy.

• 1800 age of reptiles

proposed.

• 1796 paper on living

and fossil elephants.

• 1808-1811 Paris Basin

publications: fossils
characteristic of
different strata. There
have been many
revolutions…
a
Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck (1744-1829)

• Inheritance of acquired
characteristics.
• Zoological philosophy. No
extinction, instead:
change.

– The complexifying force

– The adaptive force: adaptation
of organisms to their environment. via
acquired characteristics
Life originates at the base
of each lineage=Ø.
Mary Anning (1799-1847)
William Buckland, “On the discovery of coprolites, or fossil faeces…”,
Transactions of the Geological Society of London (1835).
‘a more ancient Dorset’ by Henry De la Beche c. 1830
• Video clip:
002 Lost Worlds, Vanished Lives. Ep. 2. Putting F
lesh on Bones
by David Attenborough.
• 1.50 mins - 6.54 mins
W. Conybeare's cartoon of Buckland entering the den of
extinct hyenas in Yorkshire in 1821.
 Megalosaurus bucklandii (1827)

Dinosaurs!
Group named by
Richard Owen in
1842.
Crystal Palace Dinosaurs (1854)
Progressive fossil record before Darwin
• Rev. William Buckland (1784-1856)
-menagerie
-tried exotic animals
-tortoise…
-the flood
Rev. Buckland, Bridgewater Treatise: geology and
mineralogy considered with reference to natural
theology. (1836)
Louis Agassiz and the ice age 1837-
Charles Lyell (1797-1875)
 Frontispiece to Lyell’s
Principles of geology.
(1830).
• Argued against sudden
revolutions.
• Instead slow gradual change.
• Natural causes such as erosion,
silting, volcanic eruptions,
elevation and subsidence from
earthquakes…
• So:
• The present is the key to the past
• Geological processes have always been slow
• There is no progress or direction.
“Temple of Serapis” today
Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology

• He was a ‘uniformitarian’? What is

that?

• How does extinction happen?

• How do new species appear?

• History of life was not progressive,

but circular?
• The astronomer John Herschel wrote to
Lyell to praise the book…