Historical Influences on Darwin
1.
Charles
Lyell.
2.
Charles
Lyell was a geologist from the 1800s. He followed the ideas of a Scottish farmer,
James Hutton. The ideas described how Earth
was transformed by changes overtime, so Lyell traveled Europe in order to prove
the concept. His version later became known as uniformitarianism. Lyell’s
theory deeply influences Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by viewing it as “a
sort of biological uniformitarianism.”
3.
“Individuals do not evolve. Populations do. Individuals
cannot change their heritable traits; they can only pass them on. Evolution
does not occur within a generation. It occurs between generations.” This point was influenced by Lyell’s gradual
change theory because the gradual change theory of uniformitarianism consisted
of tiny changes to the environment. These tiny given a course of time could produce
drastic and distinct changes. In comparison to Darwin’s theory, heritable
traits would be passed down generation to generation. These traits being passed
down “took place from one generation to the next before our very eyes but it
worked too slowly for us to perceive.” A slow process of natural selection
allowing the stronger traits for survival to be passed down and those
evolutionary changes became distinct and noticeable over a vast period of time.
4.
Yes,
Darwin could still have developed his theory of natural selection without the
influence and ideas of Charles Lyell. These gradual changes are noticeable but
over long periods of time. It would have taken Charles Darwin a lot longer to
come to these conclusions that were inspired by Lyell.
5.
The
attitude of the church affected Darwin and his decision to publish his theory
because it was highly looked down upon. It was theory that didn’t fit the
church’s guidelines or vision and so different. The church would reject anyone
who dared challenged their beliefs and Darwin was one of those people.
Identifying this as originating from a Scottish farmer is interesting but doesn't explain how the mechanism work. This is an important concept, as it parallels biological evolution, and it would have been good to explain this more fully to your reader. For example:
ReplyDeleteLyell developed the theory of uniformitarianism, which demonstrated two things: First, that the earth was shaped through slow, gradual forces, a process that remarkably mirrors the process of natural selection, a parallel Darwin may well have noticed. Second, it demonstrated that these process occurred over a very long period of time, which was very significant to Darwin. Before Lyell, it was generally accepted that the earth was only a few thousand years old. Lyell demonstrated that the earth was at least millions of years old (we now know it is billions of years old). So how does that impact Darwin? Well, natural selection is a slow process. It would not have been possible for natural selection to produce not only the extant organisms in a few thousand years but also all of the extinct organisms. With Lyell's concept of "deep time", suddenly Darwin had the geological time he for his theory to work. Lyell, quite literally, gave Darwin the gift of time. Without that, Darwin's theory would not have worked.
With regard to bullet points, Lyell actually didn't support the concept of evolution, and his theory of uniformitarianism applied only to geological change, not biological change. It was a bit trickier to make this choice for Lyell, given that he wasn't directly involved in evolutionary theory, it may be best to focus on the fact that he recognized the importance of the environment in producing change. Perhaps more importantly was the contribution of the concept of "deep time" as without that, Darwin's theory wouldn't have worked.
I'm sure Darwin would be flattered that you would think him capable of developing a concept regarding geological change. But given that he was a naturalist, he would argue that he didn't have the knowledge base to come up with this idea. You are giving him far too much credit. I usually don't like to grant any one scientist so much credit as to be indispensable to the work of another, but in the case of Lyell, I'm willing to do so, primarily because without Lyell, Darwin literally wouldn't have had enough time for his mechanism to work. Without Lyell, Darwin was stuck.
"The attitude of the church affected Darwin and his decision to publish his theory because it was highly looked down upon."
Actually, the church didn't know Darwin existed until after he published, though that doesn't mean the church didn't play a role in Darwin's decision to delay. Darwin delayed publishing for more than 20 years. The question is, why? And how did the influence of the church play a role in this delay? What were Darwin's concerns? And was he only worried about himself or was he also worried about how his family might be impacted by publishing?