BIOL 3200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Jardin Des Plantes, Great Chain Of Being, Ridicule
Document Summary
Evolutionary theory: the natural world is steadily changing; organisms have diverged from common ancestors and have been transformed over geological time. Archbishop james usher (17thc): calculated the origin of creation to year 4004 bc. Georges louis leclerc, comte de buffon: french naturalist who estimated that the earth was about 75,000 years old, and that plants/animals around ~37,000 years ago. Scientists today: universe is 10-20 billion years old, earth is ~4. 5 billion years old, life on earth arose ~3. 5 billion years ago; hominids resembling our species arose. ~4 millions years ago; homo sapiens arose ~130,000 years ago. Traditional natural theology held the world to be static god had formed all species just as they appear today, with no genealogical relationships between them. Ancient greek philosophers: there were great cataclysms (e. g. biblical flood), but noah had saved all the species that live today.
