Charles Darwin's Dilemmas

Marcus Coca
Professor Micheal Shane Williams
General Biology
9­30­14

Colleagues of Charles Darwin Charles Lyell was a British geologist in the 1800's. He got his education from Exeter college in Oxford. After college he went into law but became more interested with natural history. In 1827 Lyell quit his law practice to do geology full time. Lyell wrote a book called "
Principles of Geology Vol.­1". On Charles Darwin voyage on the ship Beagle he used Lyell book as a guideline durning his geological expeditions. When Darwin returned to England, he met Lyell and they became friends. Lyell had doubts about Darwin's theory of transmutation but encourage him to publish his ideas.
Jean­Baptiste Lamarck was a botanist and zoologist that lived int the 1800's. In his
younger years Lamarck spent a few years in Jesuit seminary the join the French army. After the army, he studied botany and became an expert in it. Lamarck viewed evolution as a goal oriented process which attempted to reach perfection.
He didn't believe that species went extinct but just evolved into another species. He described the process of evolution by saying as the environment changes, the species needed to change how they interacted with it in order to survive. As a species uses a particular structure more, that structure grows bigger.
Any change that is acquired is passed to the next generation. Charles Darwin was influence by Lamarck writing, when he was studying medicine in Edinburgh university. In the 1830's,
Darwin didn't agree with Lamarck's view on how evolution is lower forms species evolve into higher forms species. By the 1840's, Charles Darwin disagreed with all Lamarck theories except for his theory of acquiring traits.
Alfred Russell Wallace develop his own theory of evolution, it was very similar to
Charles Darwin theory. In 1848 Wallace and his friend Henry Bates went on a natural history expedition to the amazon basin in South America. In 1852 they was heading back to England with a large collection of specimens for the British museum, but before they arrive the ship caught fire. He lost his collection at sea, but when he returned he publish two books about
his travel in South America. In 1854 he went on another journey, this time to the Far East. He studied the plants and animal from Malaysian island and compared them to similar species from Australia. Wallace sent bird skin to Charles Darwin from his travels in Far East. He also sent a paper to Darwin for review but Darwin disagreed with his idea of natural selection.
Darwin disagree with most Wallace idea on transmutation and natural selection. Revd.
Thomas Malthus was British economist in the 1800's. He was a curate at
Albury,Surrey. He later became a professor of economics and history at college of East Indies company in Halieybury. His most popular book was "Essay on the Principle of Population".
This book was a controversy because it contradicted the notion that humans were perfect. In

1838 Darwin read Malthus's book, he read that as human population grows and resources are depleted the weak die off. Darwin theorized that this may occur in the wild also.
Georges Cuvier was a naturalist born on 1769 in montebeliard. Cuvier went to Paris and became an assistant and later became a professor of animal anatomy at Musee National d'Histories Naturelle. He was also appointed to several government positions. Cuvier arranged both fossil and living species in taxonomy. Cuvier believe his theory of catastrophes, which said according to the fossils animals and plants are destroyed time and again by natural disasters and new species evolve after that. Cuvier disagreed with Darwin theory of evolution. He believe each species was a new species.
Revd. John Stevens Henslow was born on 1796 in Rochester. He went to school in
St.
John, Cambridge, where he studied science, He graduated in 1818. He became the professor mineralogy at Cambridge and botany. Henslow was one of Darwin greatest influence in his early scientific career. Darwin was introduced to him by one of his cousins. Henslow tutor
Darwin in math theology and invited home to his botany lectures. Henslow help Darwin get the naturalist job on Beagle. Henslow showed Darwin how to collect, preserve and ship the specimen he collected. When Darwin returned Henslow help get funding for Darwin zoology book. Henslow was one of the most influential people in Darwin life