He took a five-year trip on the HMS Beagle. Throughout his time on board Darwin read the “Principles of Geology” that stated there was geological evidence of ancient animals. Even though on the Galapagos Islands he noticed that the finches on each island were closely related but it was different in huge ways. When he come back, he theorized evolution based on natural selection. After 20 years, he and Alfred Russell Wallace, whom we also discussed in class about, discussed evolution openly. He published his extremely controversial ideas in 1859. Darwin was attacked for his theory, mostly by the Church. But his theory became widely …show more content…
He believed that all modern creatures had originated from “one living filament”, a common ancestor. Erasmus Darwin didn’t come about with natural selection, but he did believe in rivalry/competition and sexual selection. He Knew that the toughest males reserved the right to mate, so passing on satisfactory traits. He used an integrative method of research, bringing together multiple branches of science to come to his conclusion. A lot of his ideas were similar to those of Jean Baptiste Lamarck, an obscure character in evolutionary history. Lamarck was appointed professor of invertebrates. In that moment, there was few study on insects. He wrote a series of books about invertebrate zoology and paleontology. Though other scientists in his day hinted at the possibility of evolution, Lamarck declared it forthright. He was discredited by his peers and died a poor man. However, Charles Darwin and others respected his as a great zoologist and the forerunner of evolutionary theory. Georges Cuvier was a colleague of Lamarck’s that forsake him. He was a brilliant mind, but he did not share Lamarck’s theory of evolution, going as far as to discredit him. Cuvier had studied mummies of cats and ibises brought back from Egypt by Napoleon. Finding no difference from current day animals, he had decided evolution was false. He later studied elephants and mammoth fossils,