Editing Evolution (section)

=== Pre-Darwinian ===

The [[Scientific revolution|"New Science"]] of the 17th century rejected the Aristotelian approach. It sought to explain natural phenomena in terms of [[physical law]]s that were the same for all visible things and that did not require the existence of any fixed natural categories or divine cosmic order. However, this new approach was slow to take root in the biological sciences: the last bastion of the concept of fixed natural types. [[John Ray]] applied one of the previously more general terms for fixed natural types, "species", to plant and animal types, but he strictly identified each type of living thing as a species and proposed that each species could be defined by the features that perpetuated themselves generation after generation.<ref>{{harvnb|Mayr|1982|pp=256–257}}
* {{harvnb|Ray|1686}}</ref> The [[biological classification]] introduced by [[Carl Linnaeus]] in 1735 explicitly recognised the hierarchical nature of species relationships, but still viewed species as fixed according to a divine plan.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/linnaeus.html |title=Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) |last=Waggoner |first=Ben |date=7 July 2000 |website=Evolution |publisher=[[University of California Museum of Paleontology]] |location=Berkeley, California |type=Online exhibit |access-date=11 February 2012 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110430160025/http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/linnaeus.html |archive-date=30 April 2011}}</ref>

Other [[naturalists]] of this time speculated on the evolutionary change of species over time according to natural laws. In 1751, [[Pierre Louis Maupertuis]] wrote of natural modifications occurring during reproduction and accumulating over many generations to produce new species.<ref>{{harvnb|Bowler|2003|pp=73–75}}</ref> [[Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon]], suggested that species could degenerate into different organisms, and [[Erasmus Darwin]] proposed that all warm-blooded animals could have descended from a single microorganism (or "filament").<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/Edarwin.html |title=Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802) |date=4 October 1995 |website=Evolution |publisher=University of California Museum of Paleontology |location=Berkeley, California |type=Online exhibit |access-date=11 February 2012 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120119004316/http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/Edarwin.html |archive-date=19 January 2012}}</ref> The first full-fledged evolutionary scheme was [[Jean-Baptiste Lamarck]]'s "transmutation" theory of 1809,<ref>{{harvnb|Lamarck|1809}}</ref> which envisaged [[spontaneous generation]] continually producing simple forms of life that developed greater complexity in parallel lineages with an inherent progressive tendency, and postulated that on a local level, these lineages adapted to the environment by inheriting changes caused by their use or disuse in parents.<ref name="Nardon_Grenier91">{{harvnb|Nardon|Grenier|1991|p=162}}</ref> (The latter process was later called [[Lamarckism]].)<ref name="Nardon_Grenier91" /><ref name="Ghiselin-1994">{{cite journal |last=Ghiselin |first=Michael T. |author-link=Michael Ghiselin |date=September–October 1994 |title=The Imaginary Lamarck: A Look at Bogus 'History' in Schoolbooks |url=http://www.textbookleague.org/54marck.htm |journal=The Textbook Letter |oclc=23228649 |access-date=23 January 2008 |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080212174536/http://www.textbookleague.org/54marck.htm |archive-date=12 February 2008}}</ref><ref name="Jablonka-2007">{{cite journal |last1=Jablonka |first1=Eva |author-link1=Eva Jablonka |last2=Lamb |first2=Marion J. |s2cid=15879804 |author-link2=Marion J. Lamb |date=August 2007 |title=Précis of Evolution in Four Dimensions |journal=[[Behavioral and Brain Sciences]] |volume=30 |issue=4 |pages=353–365 |doi=10.1017/S0140525X07002221 |pmid=18081952 |issn=0140-525X}}</ref> These ideas were condemned by established naturalists as speculation lacking empirical support. In particular, [[Georges Cuvier]] insisted that species were unrelated and fixed, their similarities reflecting divine design for functional needs. In the meantime, Ray's ideas of benevolent design had been developed by [[William Paley]] into the ''[[Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity]]'' (1802), which proposed complex adaptations as evidence of divine design and which was admired by Charles Darwin.<ref name="Darwin91">{{harvnb|Burkhardt|Smith|1991}}
* {{cite news |url=http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/entry-2532 |title=Darwin, C. R. to Lubbock, John |website=[[Correspondence of Charles Darwin#Darwin Correspondence Project website|Darwin Correspondence Project]] |publisher=[[University of Cambridge]] |location=Cambridge |access-date=1 December 2014 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141215213940/http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/entry-2532 |archive-date=15 December 2014}} Letter 2532, 22 November 1859.</ref><ref name="Sulloway-2009">{{cite journal |last=Sulloway |first=Frank J. |s2cid=12289290 |author-link=Frank Sulloway |date=June 2009 |title=Why Darwin rejected intelligent design |journal=[[Journal of Biosciences]] |volume=34 |issue=2 |pages=173–183 |doi=10.1007/s12038-009-0020-8 |issn=0250-5991 |pmid=19550032}}</ref>