Darwin and evolution
GET1020
Dr John van Wyhe
Who teaches this module?
Is this a science or history module?
Darwin Online
A mostly-accurate and
entertaining illustrated
introduction to Darwin and much
of this story: Introducing Darwin:
A graphic guide.
For an overview of the literature
on this subject see:
Greg Radick, Charles Darwin. In
Oxford Bibliographies in
Evolutionary Biology.
What is this course about?
Are lecture notes provided?
Details of exams etc. are on IVLE
(as are many of the readings and lecture
slides)
Who was Charles Darwin?
What is evolution?
(Hint- this popular sort of image is not evolution)
Creation stories
For ancient Egyptians,
the gods created the
world in 7 days.
They also came to believe that after death, a
persons soul faced judgement and was then
sent to a place of eternal reward or
punishment.
Norse or Viking story
The world was created
by gods from the body
of a giant.
The Batak of Sumatra believed that a sky
goddess came down to the sea. A handful
of earth was sent for her to live onSumatra. But the underworld dragon
sometimes rolls around which causes
earthquakes. (There are many in Sumatra)
Some Australian aborigines believed that
the first humans were regurgitated by a
great rainbow serpent in the sky.
The Mayans believed that the creator
gods made humans out of maize
(the main food of the Mayans).
Where do various
creatures come
from?
Goose barnacles
Medieval Europe
The life cycle
of the eagle
(These are from medieval bestiaries)
Why do hedgehogs have spines?
Mandrake root
The creation stories of the
ancient Jews
(c. 540-330 BCE)
Depiction of creation story from Martin
Luthers German translation of the Bible
(1534)
Adam and Eve in Worthy Paradise by Peter Paul Rubens (1617)
Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat by Simon de Myle (1517)
James Ussher (1650s)
characteristic fossils of different rock layers
The world created 4004 BC
John Lightfoot of Cambridge proclaimed that the time of creation
was 23 October, 4004 BC at 9:00 in the morning!
An early 19th-century English Bible,
with annotations
But there are many things not mentioned
in creation stories. What about them?
The Hesione vase, (c. 550 BC)
Inspiration for the Cyclops?
Fossil Devils toenail
(Gryphaea)
Fossil snake stones
(Ammonites)
Fossil snake stones- carved
Fossil tongue stones
Stenos teeth of a shark compared
with tongue stones (1667)
Rock layers or strata
Sediment washing out of a delta
Principles usually attributed to Steno
Law of original horizontality
Law of superposition
John Ray (1627-1705)
There are thousands of
species
Adaptation proves
divine design
the number of true species in
nature is fixed and limited and,
as we may reasonably believe,
constant and unchangeable
from the first creation to the
present day.
The wisdom of God manifested in the
works of the creation (1691).
Robert Hookes Micrographia (1665)
Engraving of a flea from Hookes Micrographia (1665)
Side note, what is an engraving?
Cells in bark from Micrographia.
Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778)
More than twice the
number of mammals as
Ray knew about.
Species are clear cut, &
only come from previous
parents. There are no new
ones.
There are far too many for
Noahs ark.
Table of the Animal Kingdom. (Linnaeus 1735).
Linnaeus used a binomial
nomenclature, two Latin names:
genus and species.
(Homo sapiens)
4,400 species of animals and 7,700
species of plants. Classification
proved design.
of all the species originally formed
by the Deity, not one is destroyed
i.e. there is no extinction.
English cyclopaedia (1854).
A diagram showing nesting taxonomy.
What is a species?
Javan myna
This?
Common Myna
Common Hill Myna
Mynas
So all mynas are part of a bigger
group, the Birds
So Mammals, Birds, Reptiles etc
Georges Buffon (1707-1788)
Les poques de la nature (1778)
Estimated the age of the Earth as 75,000
years old.
The species in different parts of the world (like
America vs. Europe) are so different they
must have been created there
Speculated that species can change a little to
fit environments but not into other species.
Illustrations from Rudwick, Scenes from deep time. (1992)
Fingals cave today
Modern mining
James Hutton (1726-1797)
Geological unconformity from Hutton 1795.
Video clip
BBC Earth Story The Time Travellers
Siccar point (11 mins - 15 mins)
Huttons Theory of the earth (1795)
a cyclical process with no vestige of a
beginning - no prospect of an end.
William Smiths stratigraphic map of England 1815
