What do you guys think is the earliest that evolution could have been discovered, or at least hypothesized? I would assume a working theory of evolution would have to include the following observations/conclusions, but please correct me if I'm wrong:
- that diverse organisms are related in some way, and not just isolated immutable "kinds" as in Young Earth Creationism
- that there existed organisms in the past that don't exist today, and vice versa
- that organisms are affected by random internal changes, whether recognized as being connected to heredity of traits, or more directly to chemical changes in the most basic substance of organisms
- that the nature and prosperity of organisms is somehow tied to the conditions and environments they live in
People like Carl Linnaeus and Georges Cuvier were already hitting on some of these points before Darwin, but not hugely before. Was it possible for these interconnected observations/conclusions to have been discovered in the early Modern period? In the Middle Ages? In the Islamic Golden Age? In Antiquity? Why or why not? And what would have been its effect on human knowledge and scientific progress?