Development and Understanding of Evolution - Theory of Evolution: Darwin and Lamarck (GCSE Biology)

Theory of Evolution: Darwin and Lamarck

Charles Darwin

Theories of evolution have been bandied around from around the 18th century. Before this period of time, the general understanding was that creationism led to all of the organisms around us. In the 1700s, theories began to form. The current theory that we follow is that of Charles Darwin.

Darwin journeyed to the Galapagos Islands and spent long periods of time observing life on these islands. He used the information that he had spent his life collecting in order to compact his observations.

He proposed the theory of natural selection.

• Individual organisms in a certain species show more variation for a certain characteristic. Some organisms in a species may have more variation than others for a certain characteristic, for example some giraffes may have longer necks than others.

All of these changes take a very long period of time. Changes are only seen after many many generations.
Darwin received a frosty reception to his critical work ‘On the Origin of Species.’ This was released in 1859. He upset many creationists, who believed that the theory challenged their notion that God created all of the plants and animals that raised on Earth.

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Lamarck

Lamarck had another theory of variation. This stated that changes in the organism during their lifetime could be inherited.

• Lamarck’s theory was known as the inheritance of acquired characteristics. Inheritance of acquired characteristics stated that if the parents had changes in their lifetime, they would be passed on to the offspring. An example of this is at the gym. If two parents spent a lot of time building their cardiovascular fitness, the child would then have this trait of strong cardiovascular fitness.