As the title says, how far back in time can people be able to describe and apply to our favor Darwin's theory or at least some form of it maintaining its main parts?
Earliest date in which natural selection is "discovered"?
- Thread starter scarletqen
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Skallagrim
Banned
Although way off base on the specifics, a number of pre-Socratic philosophers already raised the idea that one type of organism could descend from another type. Aristotle hinted at the possibility as well. Unfortunately, later interpretations of Aristotelianism - alongside Platonism, which was even worse in this regard - were more fixed on the specific notion that all natural things are actualisations of abstract universals. (So every cat is an actualisation of the universal idea "cat".) A consequence of this thinking was that it led to an overly teleological view of the world, where every thing has a fixed purpose. This became a tenet of Christian philosophy later on.
Aristotle himself did not claim that organisms always had to correspond to some fixed universal (Plato, contrarily, did claim that), and argued that there wasn't some kind of "Idea-realm" of which our own world is but a mere shadow. Instead, Aristotle reasoned that the universal essence of all things is within them, and that there is no separate realm of ideas". Rather, every cat simply contains a certain "catness", a "cat-essence", if you will. On these grounds Aristotle's actual ideas did allow for that essence to change... to evolve. Unfortunately, that interpretation was later discarded by Aristotelians, and particularly by medieval neo-Aristotelians (who were, via earlier Christian philosophy, clearly influenced by Platonism).
So... kill of Platonism altogether, or have Aristotle's ideas on the subject interpreted in a less "Platonist" way, and I'd say the philosophical basis for evolutionary thought is right there. Waiting for someone to start really thinking about it. Farmers have known for millennia that crossbreeding of animals and plants can favour certain traits, of course. And something like Gregor Mendel's experiments could be carried out in Antiquity, I'd say. Given the above scenario and a lot of luck, you could have a rudimentary theory of natural selection worked out in Antiquity.
Aristotle himself did not claim that organisms always had to correspond to some fixed universal (Plato, contrarily, did claim that), and argued that there wasn't some kind of "Idea-realm" of which our own world is but a mere shadow. Instead, Aristotle reasoned that the universal essence of all things is within them, and that there is no separate realm of ideas". Rather, every cat simply contains a certain "catness", a "cat-essence", if you will. On these grounds Aristotle's actual ideas did allow for that essence to change... to evolve. Unfortunately, that interpretation was later discarded by Aristotelians, and particularly by medieval neo-Aristotelians (who were, via earlier Christian philosophy, clearly influenced by Platonism).
So... kill of Platonism altogether, or have Aristotle's ideas on the subject interpreted in a less "Platonist" way, and I'd say the philosophical basis for evolutionary thought is right there. Waiting for someone to start really thinking about it. Farmers have known for millennia that crossbreeding of animals and plants can favour certain traits, of course. And something like Gregor Mendel's experiments could be carried out in Antiquity, I'd say. Given the above scenario and a lot of luck, you could have a rudimentary theory of natural selection worked out in Antiquity.
I think @Skallagrim explains it quite well, in order for the idea of systematic changes between generations (ie evolution) to become commonplace it must be held that the xness that is changing is held within objects rather than projected onto them from outside the mundane.
Depends on what aspect of Darwin's theories you focus. Even today there is still discussion on what he actually said and what he actually meant by it.
As for natural selection. Any intelligent medieval monk working on cultivating better crops, more bountiful fruit trees or just especially juicy rabbits could look at nature and get the idea that the same breeding program he is doing in his abbey is going on in nature itself-albeit slower- because inferior crops, the ones he would not brew any further in his garden, would have a way of dying before breeding season.
As for that, a late Roman philosopher, even an ancient Greek one would probably have had that idea before him.
As for Darwin's -real or imagined- conclusion that therefore mankind must have evolved out of some lesser species and that tho happened purely out of chance, the monk would probably toil with that idea, but promptly reject it because obviously as Humans, there is a God leading our steps. Chance not required.
As for natural selection. Any intelligent medieval monk working on cultivating better crops, more bountiful fruit trees or just especially juicy rabbits could look at nature and get the idea that the same breeding program he is doing in his abbey is going on in nature itself-albeit slower- because inferior crops, the ones he would not brew any further in his garden, would have a way of dying before breeding season.
As for that, a late Roman philosopher, even an ancient Greek one would probably have had that idea before him.
As for Darwin's -real or imagined- conclusion that therefore mankind must have evolved out of some lesser species and that tho happened purely out of chance, the monk would probably toil with that idea, but promptly reject it because obviously as Humans, there is a God leading our steps. Chance not required.
This might be the ground for the idea of evolution, but not natural selection (what the OP wants) since they haven't quite figured out any idea for hereditary other than "somethings are inherited, some aren't, and it's not entirely predictable). Add Mendel's experiments to the mix and maybe the thinkers can finish the leap. Of course, Mendel was lucky with his peas since a lot of the plants have many easily observed morphological traits a mixture of genetics and environment (which makes analysis fuzzy if you don't understand alleles/ genes/ inheritance factors) rather than pure genetics like Mendel's peas' seven traits, like using Oat would only have one easily observable morphological trait that behaves Mendalian way (actually there are a few others, but the loci for most of them were fixed until the last 500 years when mutants appeared, so basically only one)
Would It have been at all possible for the chinesep erhaps around the middle ages to concot such a theorum? Some of them had a lot of extra time on their hands to ponder the workings of the universe by then.