18th Century: Carl Linnaeus & the modern taxonomic system
Ray's ideas on taxonomy were picked up and extended by the better-known Carl
Linnaeus (1707 - 1778). He was fascinated by plants, paying botany much more
attention than was required for his medical studies at university, and took up the new
idea that plants reproduced sexually, using differences in reproductive structures to
develop a system for classifying plants. He moved on to study animals, and to help
make sense of the huge volume of data accumulated during his teaching and research
gave all his specimens a descriptive Latin binomial, or two-word, name. Linnaeus used
these names systematically in his classification system, which he published as
"Systema naturae". The "Systema" built on Ray's earlier work and catalogued the
diversity of living things in a cohesive and logical manner - the now-familiar hierarchical
way of arranging organisms, from the all-inclusive Kingdoms through Classes and
Orders to the Genus and Species of each living thing. Linnaeus went so far as to
include humans in his system and believed that humans and the great apes were so
closely related that they should be placed in the same genus. However, he didn't
actually do so, to avoid contradicting church teachings.
Alfred Russel Wallace arrives independently at a theory of evolution.
Alfred Russel Wallace (1823 - 1913) did not have the same advantages in life as
Charles Darwin. While on a major expedition to South-East Asia Wallace began to give
serious consideration to how the species he was observing might have evolved. Like
Darwin, he was influenced by the ideas on limits to population size developed by
Malthus. Quite independently of Darwin, Wallace came up with the idea that the best-
adapted organisms in a population would survive to breed, passing on their adaptations
to their offspring. He worked this insight up into a paper that he sent to Darwin, asking
for his comments and assistance in getting it published.
Charles Darwin and the theory of evolution by natural selection
Charles Robert Darwin (1809 - 1882) was one of six children born to Robert &
Susannah Darwin. Robert was a well-respected local doctor and also something of a
private investment banker; the family was always very well off. Charles was fascinated
by science, particularly natural history, from a young age. His father wished him to
become a doctor, but the traumatic experience of observing an operation on a non-
anaesthetized child caused Charles to reject that career and he became took classes in
geology and natural history, particularly marine biology.
Darwin travelled extensively in South America while the Beagle continued its surveying
duties. He made extensive fossil collections and noticed that these fossils were found in
regions now occupied by their slightly different descendants. This led him to think about
factors affecting a species' distribution. He also found evidence supporting Lyell's theory
of gradual geological change, such as fossils and ancient sea beds now far from the
sea, and witnessed first-hand how a large earthquake could raise the land.
Lamarck's concepts of evolution and inheritance
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744 - 1829) also worked at the Natural History Museum
in Paris, but his views on species were the opposite of Cuvier's. His model of evolution
proposed that individuals were able to pass to their offspring characteristics acquired
during their own lifetimes. (At the time this was a perfectly acceptable model of change,
given that nothing at all was known about the processes of inheritance.) But what
annoyed Cuvier was Lamarck's proposal that species did not go extinct, but instead
evolved into another form. In fact, Lamarck went further, stating that evolution produced
more complex organisms from simple ancestors, and that this process of change took
time.
Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hillaire (1772 - 1844) elaborated on Lamarck's views. Like
Lamarck, he felt that the environment could produce changes in living things, but went
on to suggest that if these changes were harmful, then the organism would die; only
those well-adapted to the environment would survive. This is a foretaste of Darwin's
theory of natural selection, but Geoffroy never went on to develop his idea further. This
is because both his suggestions, and Lamarck's ideas about inheritance of acquired
characteristics, were thoroughly ridiculed by Cuvier. And since Cuvier was such a
prominent scientist, his attacks carried a lot of weight. Most scientists accepted the
principle of catastrophism that he championed so strongly, until the work of Englishmen
James Hutton and Charles Lyell.
Evolutionary Biology/Thomas Malthus
Malthus then focused his studies on the human race. His calculations and
theories produced an idea that the human population would increase geometrically
while the food supply and natural resources would only increase arithmetically. This is a
potential explanation for the predicted poverty and famine. He concluded that as more
offspring are born, a more competitive nature would arise. As more offspring come into
the population, fewer resources will be available for the population. This has the
potential for competition between organisms for survival due to lack of resources. This
competitive nature would be necessary for survival of individuals within a large
population size unable to be supported by the environment. He believed that this
uncontrollable population size would eventually be the cause of famine and poverty
among humans. His reasoning behind this idea was divine intervention. He believed
that this would be the punishment for man if he became too lazy.
Malthus’ Principle of Population caused Darwin to rethink many issues while coming up
with his theory of natural selection. Malthus’ work made Darwin realize the importance
of overpopulation and how it was necessary to have variability in different populations.
Darwin also used Malthus’ ideas to use competition as well as the survival in numbers
idea to come up with his full idea of natural selection.
