Bio Scientists

Anaximander the Philosopher

believed life began in the ocean; 1st animals were fish like creatures and humans lived like this until they were ready to leave

Plato

variation is unimportant, all species were created perfectly and therefore no change is possible

believed in essentialism (things have unchanging characteristics, variation is unimportant. created fixity of species

Aristotle

created the earliest attempt at taxonomy, created Scala Naturae (great chain of being) which is the hierarchy of life that ends with humans

Al-Jahiz

created book of animals and their struggle for existence, observed adaptation in the wild

Ibn Miskawayh

believed life develops in stages, such as minerals to plants to animals to humans

Nasit al-Tusi

believed species change over time through adaptation and heridity

Ibn Khaldun

believed in gradual creation, humans emerged from earlier life forms

Zhuangzi

species transform and adapt to circumstances, life is fluid and not fixed, rooted in daoism

James Ussher

calculated age of earth but was proven wrong later

Carl Linnaeus

father of taxonomy and systematics, catalogued nature, established use of binomial nomenclature (genus + species)

Mary Anning

fossil hunter that establish the existence of extinction, discovered several significant fossils

Georges Cuvier

father of paleontology and comparative anatomy, helped establish concept of species extinction, proponent of fixity of species, believed in catastrophism

Jean Baptiste Lamarck

opponent of Cuvier, coined the term biology, proposed theory of acquired characteristics (….ian evolution), saying that organisms can pass on acquired traits, thought evolution occured in accordance with natural laws

Thomas Malthus

essay on the principle of population, discussed carrying capacity, inspired Darwin

Charles Lylell

father of geology, believed in uniformitarianism (same natural processes we see today have been shaping the earth the same way throughout history), moved away from catastrophism

Darwin

created theory of evolution and natural selection, evolutionary tree central to his theory, documented voyage discoveries about animals (Galapagos Islands)

Alfred Russel Wallace

almost published natural selection theories before Darwin, published them together

Antoinette Brown Blackwell

first woman ordained Protestant minister in US, first critique of Darwin with the sexes throughout nature

Gregor Mendel

founder of genetics, discovered genes, moved away from Homunculus theory (tiny humans inside of egg already), studied pea plants