Linnaeus (Carl Linne)(1707-1778) was a Swedish doctor of medicine who had a fascination for flowers and subsequently became a botanist. His method of classifying plants, published in Genera Plantarum (1754) and animals, published in Systema Naturae (1758), has been internationally accepted as the starting point of the modern scientific naming of plants and animals. These works proved to be the foundation stone on which Charles Darwin built his theory of natural selection.

Mary Anning (1799 to 1847) spent her entire life collecting fossils that she found washed out of the Blue Lias of the sea cliffs of Lyme Regis. Regardless of the weather, she would go out every day in search of newly exposed fossils that she could bring back and sell to collectors. The sediments that laid down the Blue Lias containing the fossils are now known to be exclusively marine and dating from the middle Mesozoic era. She is credited with the discovery of the first plesiosaur remains ever found and her second example, which was a complete skeleton, can be seen on display at London's Natural History Museum. Even though she was self taught her reputation as an expert on ancient marine reptiles (or Sea Dragons as she called them) led her into contact with some of the most eminent and forward-thinking men of her day. These included such men as Henry De la Beche, William Buckland, William Conybeare and Gideon Mantell, all of whom were members of the Geological Society.

 

Charles Lyell (1797 - 1875) was a lawyer turned geologist who became the principal proponent of the idea that the geological record could not be squared with the accepted biblical account of the earth's creation. He amassed his evidence for this through studying the fossil record, which had recently been made available by collectors such as Mary Anning. Although she was not made a member of the Geological Society until after her death, her work was well known to Lyell through his friendship with William Conybeare and William Buckland. The contemporary view of fossils was that they were the remains of creatures that were annihilated by the Great Noation flood. Lyell argued that the fossils could be shown to be very much older. Since they could be used to identify distinct geological layers, the rate at which sedimentary rocks had been laid down could be calculated. From this it was obvious that the biblical dating of the earth's rocks and that calculated from sedimentary deposition differed wildly. In later years Lyell became a close friend of Charles Darwin whose work had been greatly influenced by him over a number of years.

 

Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882) was a British naturalist who established the evidence that plants and animals evolved by means of natural selection rather than by spontaneous change. Because of the enormity of his findings, based on his expedition in HMS Beagle around the South Pacific (1831-1836), he did not publish his findings for twenty years. Eventually he was forced to publish 'Origins of Species by Means of Natural selection' when A R Wallace was about to publish a similar theory. Both Darwin and Wallace presented their papers jointly to the Linnaean Society in 1858.

'I think, that saying of Linnæus, that the characters do not give the genus, but the genus gives the characters; for this saying seems founded on an appreciation of many trifling points of resemblance, too slight to be defined.' - Charles Darwin

Summary of Darwin's theory
1. In any population of plants or animals, individuals show natural variation. It has now been shown that the source of the variations is mostly genetic mutation.
2. Because of restrictions of food and habitat, the size of a population remains constant even though more offspring are produced. Those who survive are best suited to their environment.
3. The survivors would breed and pass on their inherited advantage.
4. In a gradually changing environment these changes would spread to the whole population and eventually result in a new species.

 

Francis Crick (1916 - 2004) and James Watson (1928 -) were British biophysicists who used X-ray crystallography to work out the molecular structure of Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA), which is the chief constituent of the chromosomes that carry genetic information in plants and animals. From this, they were able to determine the mechanism of protein synthesis. In 1962 they were awarded the Nobel Prize for their work.

DNA carries the genetic information necessary for the functioning of all living cells. It consists of a double helix of two strands of amino acids coiled around each other with an enclosing ring of carbon atoms forming a Buckminsterfullerine tube around the protein. During replication, the hydrogen bonds linking the strands break and the strands separate. Each strand provides a template for the synthesis of a new complementary strand, producing two identical copies of the original protein. This property of accurate replication allows DNA to duplicate the genetic information during cell division. Occasionally errors occur in this protein replication process giving rise to random mutations. Mutated proteins may be passed on to subsequent generations, eventually resulting in variations in the species.

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Blunt, Wilfred. The Complete Naturalist, A Life of Linnaeus (William Collins, Sons and Company Ltd, London 1971).

The Macmillan Encyclopedia (Macmillan, London 1981).

McGowan, Christopher. The Dragon Seekers (Abacus, London 2001)

Darwin, Charles. On the Origin of Species, (John Murray, London 1859)