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Archbishop Ussher
stated that the creation of the world was on October 23 4004 BC
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Enlightenment Period
- known as the age of rationality
- AD 1650 - 1800
- Done by Rich Aristocrats
- Up until this point all explanations revolved around christianity
- people began to question biblical interpretations
- notions that humans could be studied scientifically and are progressive
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19th Century
- colonial period
- Europeans began colonizing diff. parts of the world
- they questioned and wondered about cultural diversity and antiquity of humans and animals
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Charles Lyell
- Geologist
- Published, Principles of Geology (1833)
- His work influenced Darwin who had a copy of Lyell's book before he left on the Beagle
- came up with concept of Uniformitarianism
- 1. change is gradual
- 2. present is the key to the past
- 3. Earth was really old
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Uniformitarianism
- concept that the formation of the earth took place through countless small changes occurring over vast periods of time
- Grand Canyon is an example of the earth's natural laws at work over time.
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Thomas Robert Malthus
- published, An Essay of the principles of population (1798)
- influential to Darwin who read his work in 1838
- 1. reproductive potential of animals and plants is unlimited, which means that not everyone is going to survive
- 2. population size is kept stable
- 3. Constant competition
- carrying capacity affects the population size depending on the sustainability of the environment, but with human advancement and technology we can always manipulate the carrying capacity
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Charles Darwin & Alfred Russel Wallace
- Both given credit for the theory of natural selection
- 1856 Darwin heard from Wallace and how his theory was similar and so both their work was read at the same time
- Darwin published origin of species (1859)
- important concepts:
- 1. Species were actually linked evolutionary
- 2. reproductive potential is unlimited
- 3. Constant competition
- 4. Populations vary
- 5. Some individuals in population are more adapted
- 6. the ones that are best adapted will pass on their genes, therefore the popultion will change overtime because of those species whos offspring that were better adapted
- species change were gradual
- this challenged the idea of "godliness of man" and that human morality is a product of bioevolution
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Thomas Huxley
- called Darwin's bulldog
- he was an anti-christian
- publicly defended Darwin, but did not always agree with him
- believed that evolution proceeded in small leaps or punctuated equilibrium
- Huxley and Darwin advocated that evolution was random and NOT progressive
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Why was darwin given the most credit than wallace?
darwin had the most empirical data
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