Early Naturalists and Their Contributions to Evolutionary Theory

A Dutch anatomist and bishop who developed ideas on geology and stratigraphy, recognizing that “tongue stones” were fossilized shark teeth.

• Georges Cuvier

• Nicolaus Steno

• Carolus Linnaeus

• William Paley

A Swedish biologist who organize a hierarchical system that describe, name, and classify species of living or fossil organisms.

• Georges Buffon

• Charles Darwin

• Jean‑Baptiste Lamarck

• Carolus Linnaeus

An English clergyman who argued that, just as a watch implies a watchmaker, the mechanical complexity of animal organs provided evidence for the existence of a divine creator.

• William Paley

• Carolus Linnaeus

• Blaise Pascal

• Charles Darwin

A French naturalist who stated that the Earth was older than previously thought (calculated to be at least 70,000 years old) and formed according to laws of physics and chemistry.

• Nicolaus Steno

• Mary Anning

• Georges Buffon

• James Hutton

French naturalist who deduced that fossils, such as mammoths and mastodons, are not like modern species, instead these species are not found on Earth today because they have gone extinct.

• James Hutton

• Georges Cuvier

• Mary Anning

• David Hume

An English paleontologist who discovered several species of extinct marine reptiles, including the first correctly identified ichthyosaur skeleton when she was twelve years old.

• Barnum Brown

• Joseph Anning

• Mary Anning

• Carolus Linnaeus

A English geologist who discovered that different rock layers contain distinct groups of fossils and learned how to recognize the same layers of rocks based upon where fossils were found.

• Nicolaus Steno

• John Strachey

• Mary Anning

• William Smith

A French naturalist who proposed that species evolve through natural processes and claimed that adaptation occurred through inheritance of acquired changes.

• Jean-Baptiste Lamarck

• Charles Darwin

• James Wallace

• Thomas Malthus

An English naturalist who proposed that all species of life have descended from a common ancestor and natural selection as a mechanism that explains evolution.

• James Wallace

• Georges Cuvier

• Charles Darwin

• Francis Darwin