Charles Darwin's Theory Of Natural Selection

Adriel Rodriguez Soto

ANT 300

Midterm Essay

April 22, 2017

The Expatiation on the Understanding of Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution: By Utilization of Scientific Disciplines Inducing the Theory of

Natural Selection

When formulating an opinion or comprehending Charles Darwin’s publication of, “On the origins of species” one must understand that the information he provides for his readers is clearly not all from his writings. Before the publication of Natural Selection in 1859, Western scientists were beginning to uncover significant pieces of information on the Earth and their organism inhabitants. Darwin bases his theory on three key realizations that many scientists had deemed to be profusely influential by the late 1700s. The three

Due to bible interpretations, it was believed that Earth’s surface was static and its age was no more than a few thousand years old. None dared to speak out for they knew that rebutting or denying any claims pronounced in the bible would lead to their condemnation by the church, thus leading many to believe such readings as factual. Influential as the church was, James Hutton a Scottish scientist, peeled away from the religious hierarchy to produce an idea known as Uniformitarianism. This idea is the assumption that the natural laws that occur in the present, have transpired in the past as well. Discontent with such interpretations of the planets age, he spent much of his life studying the terrain of Scotland and the impact natural forces, such as rain and wind, produced on the land. After much observation he came to a revolutionary conclusion that these forces would overtime change the surface of the earth due to the stacking of changing surfaces on top of one another inducing the age of the planet to be millions of years old. In 1785 Hutton presented his ideas to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, unfortunately his work went unappreciated until it was rediscovered by geologist, Charles Lyell who fervently spent much of his time explaining how Uniformitarianism worked in according to the history of the planet. Through the examinations and multiple calculations, Lyell was able to

With greater intentions of providing a more detailed image of the newly created world, many taxonomists turned away from any interest in evolution. A Pioneer and significant contributor, was English naturalist John Ray who created a platform for later taxonomy based on physical appearance. Through scrutiny of the attributes of plants and animals as well as personal observation, Ray formed the first scientific classification of animals and plants. Thus significance formed room for Swedish naturalist Carolus Linnaeus to develop the binomial nomenclature system, “Gave each plant and animal a higher-level genus name and a lower level species name.” (Larson 35). In 1735, Linnaeus presented his book Systema Natura where he provides the first version of his taxonomy, only for it to later go on to multiple revisions in which he adds more levels to the hierarchy by categorizing classes from groups of orders and forming orders from groups of genera. This modified system would eventually undergo more contribution by the insertion of multiple levels of classification. This ideal taxonomy would ultimately be used in today’s scientific areas ranging from biological diversity to what is now called