Evolution theory before Darwin

mr friendly guy · Post by **mr friendly guy** » 2005-10-04 01:38am

Reading through my list of amazon recommendations, on one of the books a creationist tries to argue the tired line that the age of the earth figures are derived soley to support evolution.

He mentions that while the age of the earth was known to be older than the 6000 years mentioned in the Bible before Darwin first proposed evolution, he then comes up with the counter argument that evolution was known about before Darwin (presumably just not in the amount of details Darwin provides).

Obviously this still doesn't show how dating methods were rigged to make the age of the earth compatible with evolution, and even if people had some theory of evolution before Darwin, it would require it to be proposed very early, since the ancient Greeks already estimated the age of the Earth to be greater than 6000 years.

However, I am interested as to whether there was any evolution theory before Darwin. I think Lamarkianism (which can be seen as an theory of evolution to rival Darwinian theory) predated Darwin, but don't quote me on that.

So is there any truth to this?

Vendetta · Post by **Vendetta** » 2005-10-04 02:36am

The Preface to On the Origin of Species contains a brief history of all the work that had gone before Darwin.

People had been noticing mutability of species for some time, Darwin was the first to form a complete theory to explain how and why.

Akhlut · Post by **Akhlut** » 2005-10-04 10:55am

This is strictly anecdotal, but I do recall hearing that some of the ancient Greek and Roman philosopher-scientists had concluded that evolution had occurred, though their ideas weren't near as sophisticated as Darwin's. Wish I could provide exact quotes and names, but, I don't recall specifics.

Anguirus · Post by **Anguirus** » 2005-10-04 11:18am

^ I don't know specifics either, but one of the "evolutionary" philosophers was Anaximander.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2005-10-04 11:25am

Indeed, Darwin's big advancement was the idea of natural selection, not evolution itself.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2005-10-04 11:29am

Anguirus wrote:^ I don't know specifics either, but one of the "evolutionary" philosophers was Anaximander.

He is, apparently, the oldest such mind to acknowledge an everchanging path in the way animals and other organisms evolve. But it was still not a full theory and can only be compared to Darwinism and neo-Darwinism the same way the ancient Greeks thought of the basic forms of matter prior to atomic theory. Darwin and Mendel paved the way for what we now call natural selection and evolutionary theory which now takes a lot from genetics (morpho-genetic studies are the in thing for looking to the past, thanks to Watson & Crick adding the needed detail to Mendel's original work).

My rather basic textbook is several hundred pages, but goes into all the other scientists who have contributed since the mid-18th century and even today new stuff is being researched; the one man to have started this new reason is chiefly Darwin (though many would acknowledge Huxley as being another force that stopped indoctrinated religious thought from swamping this new theory).

Kuroneko · Post by **Kuroneko** » 2005-10-04 11:29am

Yes, Thales and Anaimander believed that all life came from water, and that humans evolved from fish. The notion of evolution was quite a bit more immediate than modern views--Anaximander took this as a reason not to eat fish, since it would be akin to cannibalism. Aristotle also references Empedocles, who had a curious mix of spontaneous generation and evolution.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2005-10-04 11:30am

Some ancient aboriginal tribal creation myths also had animals being mutated into humans by the gods. As hard as some fundies would try to pretend that man-animal connections are counter-intuitive, in reality many cultural customs and religious practices assumed that there was a deep affinity and relation between mankind and the animal world.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2005-10-04 11:33am

I think it is really only Christianity that appeals to that line of thought, that man and animals are on two entirely separate tiers. Most other religions seem to fit the rest of the natural world nicely into their dogma rather than assume mankind is all but a god in its own right.

wolveraptor · Post by **wolveraptor** » 2005-10-04 10:46pm

Hell, even Islam considers the cruel treatment of animals an abomination. It managed to avoid that whole "man>animals" thing that pervades Judaism and Christianity.

Lord Zentei · Post by **Lord Zentei** » 2005-10-04 11:59pm

It's the "created in His image" business that causes the Judao-Christian tradition to elevate humanity above the rest of the animal kingdom. And that line is not really all that common in general, is it?

mr friendly guy · Post by **mr friendly guy** » 2005-10-05 03:25am

Did any of these older theories give a time scale for how long it would take for species to speciate?

wolveraptor · Post by **wolveraptor** » 2005-10-05 06:27pm

If it helps, ancient Greeks were already concluding a very old Earth, older than 6,000 years. This means that semi-correct evolutionary timescales could have been found back then.

Akhlut · Post by **Akhlut** » 2005-10-06 02:02am

How sad is it when one's own grasp of science is worse than that of people living over 2000 years ago?

Post by **Surlethe** » 2005-10-06 02:17am

wolveraptor wrote:If it helps, ancient Greeks were already concluding a very old Earth, older than 6,000 years.

And a round Earth, too.

Grey Eminence · Post by **Grey Eminence** » 2005-10-06 04:00am

'In Our Time' on BBC4 did a program a while ago on Lamarck who was a prominent predicessor to Darwin. You can find the program here;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/ino ... 1226.shtml

Vendetta · Post by **Vendetta** » 2005-10-06 01:40pm

Surlethe wrote:And a round Earth, too.

They'd even worked out roughly how big it was.