Transmutation of species
As a transmutation of species ( syn. change of species ), Jean Baptiste Lamarck in 1809 described his theory that described the transformation of one species into another. The term is used throughout the 19th century for evolutionary ideas that preceded Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection. Other representatives of a pre- Darwinian theory of evolution were Étienne Geoffroy Saint- Hilaire, Robert Edmond Grant, and Robert Chambers, who published the book Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation anonymous. Anatomists such as Georges Cuvier and Richard Owen or the geologist Charles Lyell led to the scientific critique of the concepts of species change. The discussion of this idea represents an important chapter in the history of evolutionary theory and influenced the answers to Darwin.
Terminology
Transmutation was one word that was commonly used during the 19th century for evolutionary ideas before Charles Darwin published his book On the Origin of Species in 1859. The term was used in alchemy to describe the transformation of common metals into gold before Lamarck. Other terms by which evolutionary ideas were referred to were the development hypothesis (a term which was also used by Darwin) and " the theory of legitimate gradation ", a term which was used by William Chilton in magazines such as The Oracle of Reason. Also, the term transformation was used in this context. The concepts denoted by these terms played at the beginning of the 19th century in connection with the history of the theory of evolution a role. The precursor of evolutionary ideas in the 18th and early 19th centuries had to invent concept with which they could call their ideas. It came before the appearance of the Origin of Species unable to agree on terminology. The term "evolution" was first produced late. Herbert Spencer used the term in his book Social Statics of 1851, there is also at least one other former use, but not in the sense in which the word is used from the period around 1865-70.
The historical development of the theory
Jean -Baptiste Lamarck suggested in his book Zoological Philosophy of 1809 a theory of the transmutation of species. Lamarck did not believe that all living beings had a common ancestor. He thought rather that all simple forms of life are continuously formed by spontaneous generation. He also thought that a life force, which he sometimes described as " nervous fluid ", the species to drive to evolve and ascend on a scale of complexity. Lamarck noticed that the species had adapted to their environment. He explained this by assuming that the vitality of the organisms prompting to change and that this change is dependent on the use or non-use of the corresponding organs, similar to how muscles adapt to exercise. He argued that these changes would be hereditary and so caused slow adaptation to the environment. This mechanism of adaptation through the inheritance of acquired characteristics was increasingly associated with his name and influenced the debates on the evolution up to the 20th century.
A radical British school of comparative anatomy, which also included the surgeon Robert Knox (physician) and the anatomist Robert Edmond Grant, had close relations with the Lamarckian school of French Transformationisten, including the scientists Saint- Hilaire belonged. Robert Grant tried to find evidence for the theory of descent, by examining homologies and so gave contributions to support the ideas of transmutation and evolution of Lamarck and Erasmus Darwin. As a young student Darwin worked with Grant together over the life cycle of marine animals. He studied geology at Robert Jameson. In the journal he edited in 1826 an article appeared in which Lamarck was praised that he would explain how higher animals have evolved from the simplest worm. This place is considered to be the earliest use of the term evolution in the modern sense. Jameson's geology lectures included usually with references to the " Origin of the Species of Animals ".
In his ninth Bridgewater treatise of the computer pioneer Charles Babbage outlined his idea that God created the world in a way, incurring by laws new species at certain times, so there is no divine miracle would be necessary when forming a new species. In 1844, the Scottish publisher Robert Chambers anonymously published an influential book entitled Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. Chambers took the view that the solar system and life have developed on Earth. He claimed that the fossils were evidence of the adoption of a higher development of the animals, a process that had eventually led to humans. The transmutation of species would thus achieving a predetermined plan, which was written into the laws that govern the world. This idea was less radical than the materialistic ideas of Robert Grant, but the consequence that man would be the last link in a developmental series of animals, much enraged conservative scholars. Chambers assumptions have been criticized from many sides. Conservatives like Adam Sedgwick and radical materialists like Thomas Henry Huxley, who rejected the idea of a predetermined world order, sought and found in the book error, which allowed them to denigrate the font. Darwin lamented the " poor intellect " of the author, and rejected it as a " literary curiosity ." However, the great publicity of the debates on Chambers ' Vestiges ' with his portrayal of evolution as a progressive process impact on the subsequent publication of Darwin's theory has had. It also influenced the then- young naturalists, among them Alfred Russel Wallace and aroused their interest in the ideas of transmutation.
Opponents of transmutation
The representatives of the idea of transmutation of species felt the radical materialism of the Enlightenment closely connected and conservative scholars often met them with hostility. Cuvier, for example, attacked the theories of Lamarck and Saint- Hilaire and claimed in the tradition of Aristotle that species were immutable. Cuvier believed that the parts that make up an animal are so closely connected that a change of a part is impossible. He was convinced that the fossil evidence for mass extinctions due to disasters are, which would be followed by a regrowth of the populations. They are therefore just no evidence for a gradual change of a kind He also pointed to the fact that the age-old representations of animals and animal mummies in Egypt no indication of any change of species in comparison with modern individuals contained. The convincing ( for that time ) Arguments of Cuvier and his outstanding reputation meant that the idea of transmutation was not included in the mainstream of 19th-century science for decades. In Britain, the Natural theology remained influential. There, William Paley wrote the book Natural Theology as a reply to the transmutation theories of Erasmus Darwin. In him we find the famous watchmaker analogy.
Representative of natural theology as the geologists Buckland and Sedgwick attacked the evolutionary ideas of Lamarck and Grant regularly. So Sedgwick wrote a particularly rude meeting of the " Vestiges ". Although the geologist Charles Lyell was an opponent of bible -oriented geology, he defended idea of immutability of species. In his major work, Principles of Geology (1830-1833) criticized and he rejected Lamarck's theory of evolution. He held rather a form of progressive creation, in which each species had its " Schöpfungsort ", was created by God for this particular habitat and die out when to change it.
Another source of opposition to the transmutation was the school of naturalists, which was influenced by German philosophers and naturalists who, like Goethe, Hegel and Lorenz Oken marked by idealism. Idealists such as Louis Agassiz and Richard Owen believed that each species was immutable and an idea in the mind of God represents. They believed that relationships between species based on developmental patterns in embryology and fossil remains can be recognized. But they were also convinced that these relationships pointing to a particular underlying divine plan, during which God created the world leading to ever greater complexity by a continuous creation and culminating in man.
Owen developed the idea that there is in God consciousness " archetypes " are incurred by the whole series of species that are related by homology. Much like yourself vertebrates same by the possession of extremities. Owen was concerned about the possible political implications of the ideas of transmutation. He led a public campaign therefore successful conservative scholar with the aim to Robert Grant to isolate in the scientific community. In his famous essay of 1841, in which he introduced the term "dinosaur " for the giant reptiles, had discovered the fossils of Buckland and Gideon Mantell, he explained that these reptiles were a proof that the transmutation theory is incorrect because the dinosaurs seemed to be further developed, as the recent reptiles. Later Darwin for his own theory about rain make homologies Owen had explored use of the investigations. However, it is probably remembering the rude treatment that had experienced Grant and have the controversial discussions on the " Vestiges " led to very carefully support his own theory with facts and arguments before he published it.