A History of Evolutionary Thinkers
Empedocles of Akragas
Anaxamander of Miletus
Plato
Aristotle
Epicurus
Kanada Kashyapa
Titus Lucretius Carus
Zhuang Zhou
Gregory of Nyassa
Origen of Alexandria
The Mayans
Rabbi Akiva
Nachmanides
Maimonides
Al-Jahiz
Augustine of Hippo
A History of Evolutionary Thinkers
Karl Von Linnae - Linnaeus
Francois Bernier
Ibn Khaldun
Robert Boyle
Erasmus Darwin
Robert Chambers
Charles Hutton
Comte de Buffon
Charles Lyell
George Cuvier
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
Henry Holm
Sir Francis Galton
Gregor Mendel
Alfred Russel Wallace
Charles Darwin
A History of Evolutionary Thinkers
Ernst Mayr
Ronald Fisher
Robert Yerkes
Sewell Wright
Theodosius Dobzhansky
Sergei Chetverikov
J.B.S Haldane
Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon
Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray
21st Century and Beyond
Karl Von Linnae - Linnaeus
He was an 18th century Swedish botanist who believed all plants and animals had been created by god and had natural groups that revealed God's divine plan – structural characteristics. He created a taxonomic hierarchy that starts with Kingdon and follows with phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. He also developed the Binomial Nomenclature system which names organisms by their genus and species names.
Ronald Fisher
He was a 20th century Mathematician who combined the ideas of Darwinism and Mendelism and asserted that small selective forces applied over sufficient time could lead to significant genetic change.
Maimonides
He was a 12th century CE Jewish physician who was a religious rationalist – he believed one was obligated to understand the Torah in a way that left space for the findings of science
George Cuvier
He was a 18th -19th-century French anatomist who developed the field of comparative anatomy wherein he discovered that most organisms in the same Linnaean category showed structures that were modifications of the same basic plan – homologies. He believed all parts of a being exist in complete harmony and thus it seemed impossible to him that any species could be modified or transformed into another. He also developed 6 main tenants of polygenism
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
He was a 18th-19th century French naturalist who published the Philosophie Zoologique, believed that species acquired inherited characteristics and organisms played a part in their own transformation
Sir Francis Galton
He was a 19th-20th Century Founder of Eugenics which was the study of agencies under human control that can improve or repair the racial quality of future generations- he was the first to apply Darwinian theory to humans.
Kanada Kashyapa
He was a 2nd-3rd century BCE philosopher who studied Vedic Philosophy which lists six categories of being that are similar to modern taxonomy, ex. genus, specific difference, inherits.
Comte de Buffon
He was an 18th Century Transmutationist who published the Histoire Naturelle which argued that there was a degeneration within species over time that led to intermediate species.
Charles Hutton
He was a 18th Century Uniformitarian who claimed that changes in the face of the earth that came about in the past were the same as the processes observed at his time but did not require the cataclysmic events of the past
Sewell Wright
He was a 20th century scientist who contributed to the idea of genetic drift
Rabbi Akiva
The Talmud recorded a story of this 2nd Century CE teacher who questioned whether life began in the ocean
Francois Berinier
He was a 17th century French physician who divided humanity into what he defined as 4 races based on physical traits.
Charles Darwin
He was a19th century Naturalist who traveled on the HMS Beagle making observations of the nature of species and their origins and noting patterns in the geographical distribution of species. He later published The Origin of Species which outlined the theory of natural selection. He is well-known for his idea of "survival of the fittest"
Charles Lyell
He was a 19th century Uniformitarian who showed that it was the constant daily action of wind and water that erodes the strata on earth over long periods of time and challenged the idea of the biblical timeline because the earth was likely much older than asserted in the text.
Robert Boyle
He was a 17th century scientist who believed in monogenism – which is that all races originated from the same source
Zhuang Zhou
He was a 4th-3rd century BCE Taoist philosopher who believed nature is constantly changing in response to changing environments
Gregor Mendel
He was a 19th century German monk who studied pea plants where he studied the variation in pea plants from generation to generation. His work set the groundwork for modern genetics and established dominant and recessive traits. He also coined the term genes and became known as the father of Genetics.
Al-Jahiz
He was a 9th century CE Islamic philosopher who expressed philosophies that were a precursor to the idea of survival of the fittest
Henry Holm
He was an18th century Scottish lawyer who became a polygenist who believed god created the different races on earth in different regions and that they could be classified as different species.
Alfred Russel Wallace
He was a 19th century contemporary of Darwin who traveled to Malaysia and South America, became the father of biogeography, and developed a theory of natural selection very similar to Darwin’s but Darwin's theory was published first. He still made made important contributions to evolutionary thought at the time
Nachmanides
He was a 12th century CE Jewish philosopher who was a critic of rationalism but also believed that Genesis should not be interpreted literally
Aristotle
He was a 4th century BCE philospher and student of Plato. He was a Naturalist who believed in Teleology which is the view that change in the world is always directed as an embryonic development toward a fixed, predetermined endpoint. He believed that a being has purposefulness wherein the goal is for their form to have a purpose.
Augustine of Hippo
He was a 4th century CE Church Father who believed forms of life have been slowly transformed over time
Erasmus Darwin
He was the 18th Century Grandfather of Charles Darwin who wrote poetical works called Zone Omega or “The Laws of Organic Life” that suggested a constantly changing, dynamic nature, of a world without end.
Epicurus
He was a 4th-3rd century BCE philosopher and founder of The Epicureans who believed the world is composed of small particles – they coined the term “atom”. The Epicureans believed that since the world was constantly in motion and constantly changing
Theodosius Dobzhansky
He was a 20th century Evolutionary Biologist who demonstrated the effects of natural selection on variation as it can happen on multiple levels and showed the theory can be tested in a lab.
Plato
He was a 5th-4th century BCE idealist philosopher who saw the universe and the beings in it as creations from the mind of god – because of this, it was believed everything was created in a perfect image. The Platonic philosophy was an idealist philosophy because it was centered around an idealized world of stable forms and categories – every species has a special essence that cannot be changed.
Gregory of Nyssa
He was a 4th century Church CE Father who had a partially naturalistic interpretation of creation wherein he believed creation was potential and not necessarily final
Empedocles of Akragas
He was a 5th-century BCE philosopher and student of Anaximander who believed that plants and animals evolved from different combinations of the 4 elements
Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray
They wrote The Bell Curve in the late 20th century which argued human intelligence was influenced by both inherited and environmental factors. They believed intelligence has a greater impact on personal progress than socioeconomic status.
Robert Chambers
He was an 18th Century Scottish philosopher who wrote The Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, who believed in the continuous development of life on earth based on the notion that it was on an inevitable progression toward higher, better-adapted forms – humans included.
Sergei Chetverikov
He was a 20th century Russian evolutionary Biologist who worked with the fruit flies Drosophila Melanogaster which later became a standard model for studying genetics. He crossed populations to show how much hidden variation exists in nature
Anaximander of Miletus
He was a 6th and 7th century BCE philosopher who was the teacher of Pythagoras and the first known Greek to publish a written document on nature. He believed all land animals evolved from fish, including humans
The Mayans
They believed creation is an ongoing process and that god created humans in stages as written in the creation story Popol Vuh which was written down in the 16th century CE but likely originated 250-900 CE. They believed humans “gave shape to time” – wherein humans changed over time which is an early suggestion of modern evolutionary theory.
Origen of Alexandria
He was a 3rd Century CE Church Father who believed the bible was meant to be taken allegorically and not as literal truth
Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon
They were early 20th century French scientists who developed the first practical intelligence test called the Binet-Simon test that measured intelligence for school placement for children. This was intended to only be used for specific placements for children but became a universal test that was used to divide races.
Ibn Khaldun
He was a 14th century CE Islamic philosopher who believed humans developed from the world of Monkeys
Robert Yerkes
He was a 20th century Primatologist who developed a test to evaluate draftees for WW1 that was taken by psychologists and eugenicists to suggest non-nordic races were less intelligent.
J.B.S Haldane
He was a 20th century Biochemist who heavily contributed to the modern understanding of genes
Ernst Mayr
He was a 20th century scientist who studied the range of populations instead of focusing on an individual in the group. He is associated with the biological species concept which is the most common way people define a species in modern times.
Titus Lucretius Carus
He was a 1st century BCE Epicurean philosopher who wrote the poem De rerum natura, also known as “On the nature of Things” that had assisted in perpetuating the legacy of the Epicurean philosophy which made a significant impact on evolutionary thought in later scientific revolutions
A History of Evolutionary Thinkers
Olivia Schmidt
Created on March 24, 2025
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Transcript
A History of Evolutionary Thinkers
Empedocles of Akragas
Anaxamander of Miletus
Plato
Aristotle
Epicurus
Kanada Kashyapa
Titus Lucretius Carus
Zhuang Zhou
Gregory of Nyassa
Origen of Alexandria
The Mayans
Rabbi Akiva
Nachmanides
Maimonides
Al-Jahiz
Augustine of Hippo
A History of Evolutionary Thinkers
Karl Von Linnae - Linnaeus
Francois Bernier
Ibn Khaldun
Robert Boyle
Erasmus Darwin
Robert Chambers
Charles Hutton
Comte de Buffon
Charles Lyell
George Cuvier
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
Henry Holm
Sir Francis Galton
Gregor Mendel
Alfred Russel Wallace
Charles Darwin
A History of Evolutionary Thinkers
Ernst Mayr
Ronald Fisher
Robert Yerkes
Sewell Wright
Theodosius Dobzhansky
Sergei Chetverikov
J.B.S Haldane
Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon
Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray
21st Century and Beyond
Karl Von Linnae - Linnaeus
He was an 18th century Swedish botanist who believed all plants and animals had been created by god and had natural groups that revealed God's divine plan – structural characteristics. He created a taxonomic hierarchy that starts with Kingdon and follows with phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. He also developed the Binomial Nomenclature system which names organisms by their genus and species names.
Ronald Fisher
He was a 20th century Mathematician who combined the ideas of Darwinism and Mendelism and asserted that small selective forces applied over sufficient time could lead to significant genetic change.
Maimonides
He was a 12th century CE Jewish physician who was a religious rationalist – he believed one was obligated to understand the Torah in a way that left space for the findings of science
George Cuvier
He was a 18th -19th-century French anatomist who developed the field of comparative anatomy wherein he discovered that most organisms in the same Linnaean category showed structures that were modifications of the same basic plan – homologies. He believed all parts of a being exist in complete harmony and thus it seemed impossible to him that any species could be modified or transformed into another. He also developed 6 main tenants of polygenism
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
He was a 18th-19th century French naturalist who published the Philosophie Zoologique, believed that species acquired inherited characteristics and organisms played a part in their own transformation
Sir Francis Galton
He was a 19th-20th Century Founder of Eugenics which was the study of agencies under human control that can improve or repair the racial quality of future generations- he was the first to apply Darwinian theory to humans.
Kanada Kashyapa
He was a 2nd-3rd century BCE philosopher who studied Vedic Philosophy which lists six categories of being that are similar to modern taxonomy, ex. genus, specific difference, inherits.
Comte de Buffon
He was an 18th Century Transmutationist who published the Histoire Naturelle which argued that there was a degeneration within species over time that led to intermediate species.
Charles Hutton
He was a 18th Century Uniformitarian who claimed that changes in the face of the earth that came about in the past were the same as the processes observed at his time but did not require the cataclysmic events of the past
Sewell Wright
He was a 20th century scientist who contributed to the idea of genetic drift
Rabbi Akiva
The Talmud recorded a story of this 2nd Century CE teacher who questioned whether life began in the ocean
Francois Berinier
He was a 17th century French physician who divided humanity into what he defined as 4 races based on physical traits.
Charles Darwin
He was a19th century Naturalist who traveled on the HMS Beagle making observations of the nature of species and their origins and noting patterns in the geographical distribution of species. He later published The Origin of Species which outlined the theory of natural selection. He is well-known for his idea of "survival of the fittest"
Charles Lyell
He was a 19th century Uniformitarian who showed that it was the constant daily action of wind and water that erodes the strata on earth over long periods of time and challenged the idea of the biblical timeline because the earth was likely much older than asserted in the text.
Robert Boyle
He was a 17th century scientist who believed in monogenism – which is that all races originated from the same source
Zhuang Zhou
He was a 4th-3rd century BCE Taoist philosopher who believed nature is constantly changing in response to changing environments
Gregor Mendel
He was a 19th century German monk who studied pea plants where he studied the variation in pea plants from generation to generation. His work set the groundwork for modern genetics and established dominant and recessive traits. He also coined the term genes and became known as the father of Genetics.
Al-Jahiz
He was a 9th century CE Islamic philosopher who expressed philosophies that were a precursor to the idea of survival of the fittest
Henry Holm
He was an18th century Scottish lawyer who became a polygenist who believed god created the different races on earth in different regions and that they could be classified as different species.
Alfred Russel Wallace
He was a 19th century contemporary of Darwin who traveled to Malaysia and South America, became the father of biogeography, and developed a theory of natural selection very similar to Darwin’s but Darwin's theory was published first. He still made made important contributions to evolutionary thought at the time
Nachmanides
He was a 12th century CE Jewish philosopher who was a critic of rationalism but also believed that Genesis should not be interpreted literally
Aristotle
He was a 4th century BCE philospher and student of Plato. He was a Naturalist who believed in Teleology which is the view that change in the world is always directed as an embryonic development toward a fixed, predetermined endpoint. He believed that a being has purposefulness wherein the goal is for their form to have a purpose.
Augustine of Hippo
He was a 4th century CE Church Father who believed forms of life have been slowly transformed over time
Erasmus Darwin
He was the 18th Century Grandfather of Charles Darwin who wrote poetical works called Zone Omega or “The Laws of Organic Life” that suggested a constantly changing, dynamic nature, of a world without end.
Epicurus
He was a 4th-3rd century BCE philosopher and founder of The Epicureans who believed the world is composed of small particles – they coined the term “atom”. The Epicureans believed that since the world was constantly in motion and constantly changing
Theodosius Dobzhansky
He was a 20th century Evolutionary Biologist who demonstrated the effects of natural selection on variation as it can happen on multiple levels and showed the theory can be tested in a lab.
Plato
He was a 5th-4th century BCE idealist philosopher who saw the universe and the beings in it as creations from the mind of god – because of this, it was believed everything was created in a perfect image. The Platonic philosophy was an idealist philosophy because it was centered around an idealized world of stable forms and categories – every species has a special essence that cannot be changed.
Gregory of Nyssa
He was a 4th century Church CE Father who had a partially naturalistic interpretation of creation wherein he believed creation was potential and not necessarily final
Empedocles of Akragas
He was a 5th-century BCE philosopher and student of Anaximander who believed that plants and animals evolved from different combinations of the 4 elements
Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray
They wrote The Bell Curve in the late 20th century which argued human intelligence was influenced by both inherited and environmental factors. They believed intelligence has a greater impact on personal progress than socioeconomic status.
Robert Chambers
He was an 18th Century Scottish philosopher who wrote The Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, who believed in the continuous development of life on earth based on the notion that it was on an inevitable progression toward higher, better-adapted forms – humans included.
Sergei Chetverikov
He was a 20th century Russian evolutionary Biologist who worked with the fruit flies Drosophila Melanogaster which later became a standard model for studying genetics. He crossed populations to show how much hidden variation exists in nature
Anaximander of Miletus
He was a 6th and 7th century BCE philosopher who was the teacher of Pythagoras and the first known Greek to publish a written document on nature. He believed all land animals evolved from fish, including humans
The Mayans
They believed creation is an ongoing process and that god created humans in stages as written in the creation story Popol Vuh which was written down in the 16th century CE but likely originated 250-900 CE. They believed humans “gave shape to time” – wherein humans changed over time which is an early suggestion of modern evolutionary theory.
Origen of Alexandria
He was a 3rd Century CE Church Father who believed the bible was meant to be taken allegorically and not as literal truth
Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon
They were early 20th century French scientists who developed the first practical intelligence test called the Binet-Simon test that measured intelligence for school placement for children. This was intended to only be used for specific placements for children but became a universal test that was used to divide races.
Ibn Khaldun
He was a 14th century CE Islamic philosopher who believed humans developed from the world of Monkeys
Robert Yerkes
He was a 20th century Primatologist who developed a test to evaluate draftees for WW1 that was taken by psychologists and eugenicists to suggest non-nordic races were less intelligent.
J.B.S Haldane
He was a 20th century Biochemist who heavily contributed to the modern understanding of genes
Ernst Mayr
He was a 20th century scientist who studied the range of populations instead of focusing on an individual in the group. He is associated with the biological species concept which is the most common way people define a species in modern times.
Titus Lucretius Carus
He was a 1st century BCE Epicurean philosopher who wrote the poem De rerum natura, also known as “On the nature of Things” that had assisted in perpetuating the legacy of the Epicurean philosophy which made a significant impact on evolutionary thought in later scientific revolutions