4004 B.C.
, Sunday, October 23 - the beginning of the world, as thought by James Ussher Archbishop and conservatives of
the time - including Hooke
Fossils - thought to be relics from before the flood, or to be failed attempts at life (life arose from the mud)
Catastrophism - the beginning of natural history
Hooke, etc. - started studying fossils, noticed that they were plants and animals that no longer exist, laid down in sediment
underwater (eg. ammonite)
Decided that there were major catastrophic changes in the past, as the earth is only 6000 years old
Compte de Buffon - estimated the world to be 75 thousand years, and privately 3 billion
Universal Ocean Theory - the earth's surface cooled and wrinkled, rain produces an ocean that retreats with time
Kant - rival nebular hypothesis, the solar system began as a dust cloud
Georges Cuvier - 80% of fossil animals extinct, vertebrates became increasingly bizarre the deeper they were found
Cuvier and Brongiart alternating salt and freshwater strata, lining up with catastrophism beliefs
Palaeotherium - Rhino and a pig
Megatherium - huge fucking sloth
Megalosaurus - 1850s model - giant lizard, Richard Owen, first described by William Buckland, modern rendition is
T-Rex
The Last American Mammoth - extinct species, with a different jawbone to elephants
Vulcanism - James Hutton, 1788 the Theory of the Earth, cyclical perpetual cycle of uplift and erosion of land, where the
primary agent of geological change is fire
Deist - belief in the existence of a deity who created a perfect world, but no longer intervenes - the world runs like a clock
Uniformitarianism - the forces working in the past are not the same as those in the present
Earth is old
Problems for uniformitarianism - mountain ranges, fossils in the north, evidence of huge eruptions
Lyell (deist) - argues the earth is very old, Mt Etna - grows slowly but is very big, therefore must’ve taken a long time to
grow - sitting on young strata and fossils; ran into problems - mass extinctions, and the progressive nature of the fossil
record - explained the record was always incomplete, with missing intermediary types to be found
Argument from design - Natural Theology - the watch analogy, an engineer behind earth because of its complexity (Paley,
Boyle, Ray)
Bridgewater treatises 1833-36, the manifestations of God in nature; “On the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God, as
manifested in the Creation.”
The classification of life - need for order
1623: 6000 plants, 1763: 18 000 plants, 1700: 50 000 plants
Carl Linnaeus established the modern classification of species, classifying plants by their sexual parts, introduced
binomial nomenclature - no longer classify by sexual parts, however, his hierarchical system remains
Modern plants found in 4000 year old Egyptian tombs
The progressive nature of the fossil record is not suggestive of evolution - complex early life, eg. Trilobites
Lamarck - the use and disuse of parts, animals using certain traits more causes them to pass the traits onto their offspring -
inheritance of acquired characteristics
The Great Chain of Being - internal force driving life up the ladder, ladder vs. environmental pressure, chain increases in
complexity over time
Richard Owens - an unfolding of God’s plan, through changes seen in the fossil record
Owens created the ideal form, the vertebrate archetype that all animals are based upon “fish”
Disagrees with Darwin
Homo - same archetype (bat wing, human hand), Anal - not the same, despite similarities
(bird wing, insect wing)
Chambers and his Vestiges, 1844
Life becoming more and more complex, with the middle class, merchants, and industrialists
becoming more rich and powerful
Progress by law - the framework for the origin of the species
Huxley say no
Darwin; father - country doctor and investor, grandfather - deist and poet - Zoonomia (shoreless waves - the universal
ocean, spheric glass - the early microscope, powers acquire - lamarckian), mother - Wedgewood China founded in 1759
Studied medicine in Edinburgh, then switched to Cambridge to become a clergyman, hangout with Henslow (botany) and
Sedgwick (geology)
The HMS Beagle, with Robert Fitzroy, 27 December 1831 till October 1836
Fitzroy, 26, kidnapped 6 Native Americans to assimilate them into English society (Fuegen people), plus a crew
of 70 people; Christina Calderon - last of the Yaghan people in Tierra del Fuego
Darwin was his companion
Darwin shifted form Catastrophism to Uniformitarianism, seeing proof of Lyell's Principles of Geology
Earthquake with a 3m rise in land, as well as layers of petrified forests, lava, and sea shells as high as 2000m
Corals building on themselves to create a coral barrier around an island, which will eventually sink to create an
Atoll
Lyell and Darwin homies back in England upon Darwin's return
Galapagos islands - are identifiable based on the species of tortoise on each island
Darwin killed and brought a bunch of finches home - discovered that each island had very distinct species
1838 - became an evolutionist, 1844 - transmutationist
Had no mechanism to evolution, besides Lamarkian theories
To marry or not to marry - 1838, 1839 - married his first cousin Emma, and had 10 children - eventually moving to Down
House in Kent
President of the Royal Society - General Sir Edward Sabine, 1862
The Natural Theologians - Samuel Wilberforce, Richard Owens - belief in the Great Chain of Being
The Naturalists - Huxley (Darwin’s Bulldog), John Lubbock, John Tyndell
The Social Reformers - not worried about Darwin's issues, but instead social issues and the radical woman
In 1862, Darwin published the Origin of Species
Sedgwick aimed critique at Darwin's method and structure of argument, in terms of inductive vs. deductive reasoning
Claimed he made too many assumptions based on his observations, basing his theories upon the assumptions rather than
the evidence - more so inductive reasoning, as opposed to the desired deductive reasoning
Herschel claimed God served as the primary cause of everything - questioned natural selection, because it displayed God
as a non powerful designer
Mill claimed Darwin did not use inductive reasoning, but his work stood as a testament to the legitimacy of hypothesis
The true cause - vera causa, supernatural intervention
Darwin’s theories follow random variation and natural causes, as opposed to divine intent
