1.) I think Charles Lyell contributed most to Darwin's theory of natural selection.
2.) Charles Lyell was a geologist that helped cement the idea of uniformitarianism. Uniformitarianism is the theory that the earths features, such as mountains, volcanoes, rivers and so on, are a result of a long term process of earthquakes, erosion, wind flooding and more that happened in the past and continue to happen today that shape our landscape. This opposed the idea of catastrophism that suggested that earths landscape was created with huge events that destroyed and shaped the world. What Lyell argued was that insignificant changes happened over time creating a deep change in the landscape over decades.
http://all-geo.org/highlyallochthonous/2009/02/darwin-deep-time-and-evolution/
page 30 and 31 of the anthropology textbook
3.) The bullet point I think Lyell's theory goes with most is Individuals do not evolve. Populations do. This shows that over time small changes are happening over the landscape that do not effect it until over long periods of time. Evolution happens between generations just like the landscape it dose not have noticeable change within one generation.
4.) I do not think Darwin could have came up with natural selection with out Lyell's Theory. This Theory is one of the main points that led Darwin to Natural Selection. The process and time it takes for it to occur. Lyell theory helped shaped Darwin's by realizing the the time and generation gaps that occur.
5.) The attitude of the church affected Darwin and his book Origin of Species by slowing down his the process. Because Darwin grew up and knew very influential people he was afraid to tell anyone of his findings. It took him an extra 22 years to publish his book making sure he had enough evidence to back up his theory. This probably made the book and his research much more detailed.
Good description on Lyell's work, particularly putting in in contrast with Cuvier's theory of catastrophism. Good comparison.
ReplyDeleteYou made a good attempt to choose a bullet point for Lyell and you argued it well. In truth, the biggest contribution Lyell may have made to Darwin is the the gift of time (and you do seem to allude to this). Prior to Lyell's work, the prevailing opinion was that the earth was only thousands of years old. That isn't nearly long enough to evolution to work. By presenting evidence that the earth was actually millions (and now we know, billions) of years old, Lyell gave Darwin enough time for the slow process of evolution by natural selection to do its job.
I tend to think that no one scientist is so influential over another's work that they were indispensable. However, given how important that concept of "time" was to Darwin, I do wonder if he would have never been able to work out his theory without Lyell.
You know, I agree that one of the benefits of waiting more than 20 years to publish is that Darwin had his argument nearly perfected when he finally presented it. Given its potential for controversy, that was likely a very good thing, making it easier for Darwin's supporters to argue his case and ease the acceptance of his ideas into the scientific community. Good discussion and good first post.
Hi Heather,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post & thought you had some great arguments to why Lyell was most influential on Darwin, however, I believe that Thomas Malthus was the most influential. I believe this because Darwin read Malthus' essay & was inspired by the information he portrayed in it. Even though Malthus' beliefs were aimed more toward human growth and resource limits, Darwin had took it to the next level and focused on every living organism not just humans. If Darwin had not read the essay, I feel he would not have been able to develop the natural selection theory and that he would still be scattering for answers.
Hello Heather,
ReplyDeleteI just read your post and though i do not agree that Charles Lyell was the most influential in Darwin's theory of natural selection I do agree that without Lyell's work Darwin's theory would not have been so accepting. Lyell's uniformitarianism theory allowed Darwin to envision evolution as a slow process that cannot be seen with one generation. If Darwin would have stated the opposite then his theory would have been discarded quickly by others because they would have have wanted proof that the evolutionary process happens within one generation and since it does not Darwin's theory would have been easily falsifiable.
Heather,
ReplyDeleteI like how you compared the small changes in the landscape to the small changes in populations.
I agree that small changes do happen slowly and go unnoticed but after a long period time the changes are noticeable. Nice comparison.
Susan