Evolution of an Evolving Theory of (R)evolution

Much of the (r)evolutionary zeal with which Humboldt first explored and challenged the world of empire, colonialism, racism and slavery, was later repressed by the combined powers of conservative establishments connected to aristocracy, church, and monarchy. Yet evolutionary thought goes back a long way, so it is important to understand how the evolution of the theory of (r)evolution evolved.

2600 years ago in ancient Greece, Anaximander (pre-Socrates), Hippocrates, Empedocles, and Heraclitus (500 BC).

300BC Zhuang Zhou – a Taoist philosopher expressed similar ideas of changing biological species.

800 AD Al Jahiz an Arabian scholar wrote Kitab al Hayawan, followed by 1377 Ibn Khaldun who wrote Muquaddimah.

1478 onwards religious scholars of the Enlightenment in Spain who translated the above from Arabic (back) into Latin, were later accused of heresy during the Spanish Inquisition.

1744 Carolus Linnaeus – read the work of Anaximander, Hippocrates and Heraclitus, and developed the binomial classification system of life. He was an evolutionary thinker and an influence on Erasmus Darwin (Grandfather of Charles Darwin).

1753 Georges Louis Leclerc (aka Comte de Buffon) a pivotal influence on evolutionary thought.

1789 Revolution in France – Buffon and Jean Baptiste Lamarck’s evolutionary ideas fanned (r)evolutionary flames. Humboldt was in Paris and conversed at length with Buffon and Lamarck.

1799 Alexander von Humbolt and Aime Bonpland, having been rejected from joining a group of Napoleon’s science team, obtained passports from Madrid to explore the Spanish empire. They explored Latin, Central and South America and discovered and mapped 1000’s of new species. Humboldt proposed his theory of Naturegemalde – how different plant species adapt in similar ways to altitudes around the World.

1802 Jean Baptiste Lamarck proposes Biology, the study of life, as the latest branch of natural sciences. Correspondence between Erasmus Darwin, Lamarck and Humboldt.

1809 evolution via aquired characteristics proposed by Lamarck in his publication Philosophie zoologique.

1830 – 9 years after death of Napoleon Bonaparte and 1 year after Lamarks’ death, Georges Cuvier and Etienne Geoffroy Saint Hilaire (Lamarck’s student) debate Lamark’s theory at the Paris Academy of Sciences. Cuvier wins due to Etienne and Lamark’s lack of evidence for an evolutionary mechanism. The posthumous lampooning of Lamark’s theory of evolution by acquired characteristics due to lacking a mechanism has continued to this day.

1831 – 1836 Charles Darwin sails on HMS Beagle arriving at Galapagos islands 1835.

1854 – 1862 Alfred Russel Wallace voyages in the Malay archipelago discovering the Wallace line a boundary between mammals
including primates on one side and marsupials and extreme bird diversity on the other side. Wallace writes to Darwin about evolution by a mechanism of adaptive radiation to fill vacant niches. Darwin decided to call this ‘natural selection’ (coined in contrast with ‘artificial selection’ by which farmers had bred new crops and livestock from ‘wild types’).

1858. With Wallace’s permission, a joint paper is published on evolution by natural selection.

1859 Charles Darwin publishes his best-seller: On The Origin of Species by Natural Selection.

1860 Karl Marx reads Darwin’s book and writes enthusiastically to Darwin to ask if Darwin would endorse his political philosophy.

1862 Engels attends talks on evolution by natural selection by the biologist Thomas Huxley.

1889 Wallace contributes a paper to the proceedings of the International Worker’s Congress in Paris.

1910 Wallace publishes: A World of Life in which he emphasises the role of the environment (nature) in evolution.

1930 Ronald Fisher publishes The Genetic Theory Of Natural Selection 1st attempt to combine Mendelian genetics and Natural
Selection.

1942 Julian Huxley publishes ‘Evolution: The Modern Synthesis’ incorporating Mendelian genetics.

1980’s: Lynn Margulis publishes her insights inspired by lichens on evolution by endosymbiosis, Symbiogenesis.

1980: Carl Sagan published Cosmos – a personal voyage. Sagan explores 15 billion years of cosmic evolution and the development of science and civilization.

2011: Douglas Rudan updates the modern synthesis in his paper published 2011 ‘The (new) new synthesis and epigenetic capacitors of morphological evolution’.

2020: Alan Rayner develops new insights stemming from fungal mycelial behaviour –  applied across biological and other natural and physical sciences; the theory of evolution by natural inclusion.