Myth 2 - That Most European Naturalists Before Darwin Did Not Think That Species Change Was Possible

Summary

Charles Darwin is often presented as the person who “discovered” evolution, sometimes along Alfred Russel Wallace. In some cases, references are made to the writings of Jean Baptiste Lamarck or Darwin’s grandfather Erasmus, but these are quickly dismissed as speculative. It is thus Darwin who is left as the single individual who figured out that species emerge from natural evolutionary processes, rather than special creation. However, this is far from accurate. The history of the study of evolution before Darwin not only includes Lamarck but a much wider intellectual community in Europe that discussed the stability of species and produced many different views on the subject. The European scientific scene from the late eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century was complex, and debates about the transformation of species had already occurred around 1800. This milieu extended beyond naturalists in England and France to Italian geologists and botanists, German naturalists and anatomists, and Russian paleontologists and zoologists. This chapter calls attention upon  a number of authors and readers engaging in  broadly “evolutionary” conversations.