Evolution: Influential People/Historical Figures

Adaptations arise through natural selection

individuals with favorable inherited traits produce more offspring than those with unfavorable inherited traits.

Taxonomy

classifies organisms hierarchically and names them using a binomial nomenclature.

Adaptations

animals gain characteristics that enhances their survival and reproduction in a given environment.

Carl von Linnaeus

Father of taxonomy

James Hutton

Discovered that geological gradualism takes long periods of time, so Earth must be over 5000 years old

Charles Lyell

Built on Hutton's theory of gradualism and proposed uniformitarianism

Thomas Malthus

Theorized that overproduction of populations can lead to limited resources and introduced the concept of carrying capacity

Georges Cuvier

Father of vertebrate paleontology; found that the older the strata the less the fossils in that stratum looked like current life forms; theory of catastrophism

Charles Darwin

His observations led to new ideas (adaptations and adaptations arise through natural selection)

Theory of catastrophism

The geological history of Earth is an alternation of long periods of calm with brief catastrophic events that immensely change the planet

Uniformitarianism

Earth was shaped by processed and forces that still exist today

Taxonomy

a classification of organisms into groups based on similarities of structure or origin etc