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History of evolutionary thought
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Human beings were always wondered about origin their environment.
The history of evolutionary thought traces a rich intellectual journey spanning more than two thousand years—from early philosophical speculations in ancient Greece to the cutting-edge genomic research of the 21st century. While evolution as a process is now a foundational principle in biology, its acceptance and scientific explanation emerged only after centuries of debate, discovery, and refinement.
Long before Charles Darwin formalized the theory of natural selection, thinkers like Herodotus, Linnaeus, and Lamarck laid important groundwork by classifying life and questioning its permanence. With the rise of geology and the realization that Earth was far older than previously believed, new space opened for understanding how species could change over vast stretches of time. Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" in 1859 marked a turning point, providing a naturalistic mechanism for evolution and reshaping biological science.
This article explores the major milestones, thinkers, and theories that shaped our current understanding of evolution from ancient ideas to modern evolutionary biology, revealing how one of nature’s most profound truths came to be uncovered.
Early Discoveries and Interpretations
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| Xenophanes on stamp of Greece 2019 MiNr.: 3042, Scott: 2879 | Pythagoras on stamp of San Marino 1983 MiNr.: 1275, Scott: 1045 | Herodotus on stamp of Greece 2009 MiNr.: 3044, Scott: 2881 |
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| Al-Biruni on stamp of Iran 1973 MiNr.: 1649, Scott: 1728. | Ibn Sina, known in the West as Avicenna on stamp of Iran 2013 MiNr.: 3303, Scott: . | Shen Kuo on stamp of China 1962 MiNr.: 671, Scott: 643. |
In ancient Greece, philosophers such as Xenophanes (c. 570–475 BCE) and Pythagoras (c. 570-495 BCE) speculated that marine fossils found in mountains were evidence of flooding by past seas.
The Greek historian Herodotus (c. 484–425 BCE) observed fossilized seashells and marine remains in the mountains of Egypt and Libya. He suggested that these regions were once covered by seawater, supporting the idea that the landscape had changed over time.
This Greek philosopher Empedocles (c. 495–435 BCE) proposed that land and sea had changed places multiple times in Earth's history. While his ideas were more mythical than scientific, they implied an understanding that fossils in mountains could be evidence of past marine environments.
Genesis and stability of species
With the rise of Christianity across Europe, much of the ancient scientific knowledge faded into obscurity. The dominant explanation became one of divine creation, as described in the Bible: God had created the Earth and all living things, while each species was designed for a specific purpose in nature.While in the East ancient thinkers such as al-Biruni (973 - 1048) and Avicenna (980 - 1037) in Iran, Shen Kuo (1031 - 1095) in China correctly identified fossils as remains of animals and plants, naturalists in the Christian world, often interpreted fossils as relics of biblical titans or just a nice stone in a form or animals bones, so called the "game of Nature". Another common explanation, especially among clergy, suggested that God had placed some bones in rocks to test people believe in the Genesis.
In 1620, James Ussher (1581–1656), Archbishop of Armagh and professor at Trinity College Dublin, applied detailed biblical chronology to calculate the Earth’s age. His conclusion—that the Earth was approximately 6,000 years old—would influence Christian doctrine for centuries.
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| The Genesis on stamps of Israel 1965, MiNr.: 346-351 ; Scott: 298-303. Day 1: Light, Day 2: Sea and Firmament, Day 3: Land and Plants, Day 4: Celestial Bodies, Day 5: Birds and Fish, Day 6: Land Animals and Humans |
God creates animal on stamp of Germany 2014, MiNr.: 3085; Scott: 2790.
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| Miocene salamander Andrias scheuchzeri on Maxi Card of Switzerland 1959 |
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| The dragon fountain von Klagenfurt on commemorative postmark of Austria 1968 |
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| Johann Jakob Scheuchzer on commemorative postmark of Switzerland 1977 |
Around the year 1335 a skull of a mysterious animal was discovered near the small Austrian town Klagenfurt. Because it looked different from anything known to inhabitants of the town, they interpreted it as belonging to a dragon, a creature deeply rooted in local folklore.
In 1577, near the monastery of Reiden in Switzerland, mammoth bones were discovered, these bones were interpreted as bones of a giant who lived in the region in the past.
In 1726, Swiss naturalist Johann Jakob Scheuchzer (1672–1733) described the fossil of a large, one-meter-long Miocene salamander, which would later be named Andrias scheuchzeri in his honour. At the time, however, Scheuchzer believed the specimen to be the remains of a human who had drowned in the biblical Flood.
16th and 17th Centuries - Recognition of fossils as remains of living organisms
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| Bernard Palissy on stamp of France 1957, MiNr.: 1137; Scott: B313. |
Based on his own observations, Palissy noted that the shapes and intricate structures of fossilized shells and bones were too precise and biologically accurate to be anything but the remnants of living creatures. He also suggested that these remains had been buried in sediments and hardened over time - a view quite progressive for the 16th century.
His views were published in his major work, "Discours Admirables" (1580), where he wrote about natural history, geology, and hydrology, emphasizing the importance of firsthand observation:
I am of the opinion that these are truly the remains of sea creatures, and that they were once living,
for one sees in them all the natural characteristics of the creatures they resemble.
In 1667, Danish scientist and Catholic bishop Nicolas Steno (1638–1686) published "Canis Carchariae Dissectum Caput" ("A Dissected Head of a Shark of the Species Carcharias"), where he made a ground-breaking observation that would lay the foundation for modern paleontology and geology. While dissecting the head of a shark caught near Livorno, Italy, in the previous year, Steno noticed a striking resemblance between the shark’s teeth and the widely known “tongue stones” - fossilized objects embedded in rocks that had long been believed to possess mystical or magical properties.
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| Nicolas Steno and the shark teeth on stamps of Denmark 1969 and 1998 respectively. MiNr.: 485, 1196; Scott: 462, 1107. | |
Nicolas Steno explored the cliffs and hills of Italy to unravel Earth’s structure and proposed that all rocks and minerals originally existed in a fluid state. Over time, these materials floated on the surface of an ancient ocean and gradually settled, forming successive horizontal layers - each new layer accumulating atop the previous one. Occasionally, molten rock would intrude through these layers and spread out, creating new strata of its own. As sediment accumulated, it could entomb the remains of living creatures, preserving them as fossils within the rock record. These layered deposits form a chronological sequence — the oldest at the bottom, the youngest at the top, unless later geological processes have altered their order. This ordering principle became known as Steno’s Law of Superposition, his most enduring legacy in geology.
18th century - Binomial nomenclature and Earth age estimation and first explanation about animals distribution
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| Carl Linnaeus on stamp of Sweden 1939, MiNr.: 273B; Scott: 298. |
The first volume was issued on 24 May, the second volume followed on 16 August of the same year. The book contained 1,200 pages and was published in two volumes; it described over 7,300 species. In this seminal work, Linnaeus described and classified thousands of species. Over time, he began to notice patterns and similarities among organisms that hinted at common ancestry, though he remained cautious about such conclusions.
Linnaeus introduced a standardized way of naming organisms with a two-part Latin name (genus and species), e.g., Homo sapiens, or Tyrannosaurus rex. This created a universal language for biology that is still used today.
He organized life into nested categories (Kingdom, Class, Order, Genus, Species), reflecting perceived relationships among organisms. While initially intended to show the order of God's creation, this system later helped scientists infer evolutionary relationships.
Although Linnaeus was not an evolutionist, his classification system and the concept of natural groupings of organisms became crucial for Charles Darwin and others. Darwin’s theory of common descent and the tree of life concept were deeply influenced by Linnaean taxonomy, which organized life in branching categories.
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| Georges Buffon on stamp of France 1949, MiNr.: 874; Scott: B241. |
In his experiment, Buffon heated iron spheres of different sizes until they glowed red-hot and then placed them in a cave to cool. By timing how long each sphere took to reach room temperature, he extrapolated these results to estimate that an Earth-sized mass would require about 75,000 years to cool from a molten state—vastly longer than the 6,000‑year age derived from Biblical chronologies.
Building on this deep timescale, Buffon argued that life itself must have a history. This notion challenged the prevailing view that all species were created by God in their present forms with fixed roles, eliminating any need for change.
Buffon proposed that life could arise spontaneously under suitable conditions. He imagined that, in the searing oceans of the early Earth, unorganized matter gave birth to vast quantities of living organisms, even large animals appearing fully formed. As the planet cooled, many of these creatures migrated toward the tropics, which explained why fossilized elephant remains were found in Siberia and North America, while living elephants existed only in Africa and South Asia. In his view, the Siberian form had persisted to become the modern elephant, whereas the North American varieties had died out.
Because he believed the Earth began in an intensely hot state, Buffon initially argued that life must have originated in the far north of Siberia. However, when it became clear that the extinct Siberian mammoth differed from today’s Indian and African elephants, that hypothesis fell apart. Eventually, Buffon accepted that mammoths and mastodons were simply cold‑adapted relatives of modern elephants rather than direct ancestors.
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| Woolly mammoth on stamp of Switzerland 2024 MiNr.: 2970, Scott: ?. | Mastodon on stamp of USA 1996 MiNr.: 2737, Scott: 3079. | African elephant on stamp of Tanzania 1988 MiNr.: 428, Scott: 388. | Asian elephant on stamp of Bangladesh 1977 MiNr.: 98, Scott: 134. |
During his studies of the natural world, Buffon observed that regions with similar climates often supported very different assemblages of plants and animals a concept now known as Buffon’s Law, and regarded as the first principle of biogeography.
He proposed that following their dispersal from a single “center of creation,” species could both improve and degrade in form, directly contradicting the the biblical Genesis concept.
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| Buffon's statue (located in the botanical garden of the Natural History Museum at Paris) is on the salvages of personalized Mini-Sheet of France from 2016. |
He went so far as to suggest that the first humans were dark‑skinned Africans, , but did not pinpoint the area of human origin beyond delineating it as “the most temperate climate [that] lies between the 40th and 50th degree of latitude”.
During Buffon's lifetime, many speculated that apes were simply inferior humans, degenerate children of Adam.
Unusually for his time, he rejected the notion that Europe was humanity’s birthplace.Buffon recognized that human populations could change over time, he did not believe humans had descended from other animal species; rather, he thought each species began as its own prototype that could subsequently undergo modifications, with some characteristics overlapping among species.
Buffon was also one of the first naturalists to describe ecological succession — the sequential change of communities over time.
Because his ideas on deep geological time and species transformation conflicted with the literal biblical narrative of Creation, the theology committee at the University of Paris compelled him to recant his theories about geological history and animal evolution.
Nevertheless, in later editions of "On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin acknowledged Buffon as "the first author who in modern times has treated [evolution] in a scientific spirit".
18th and 19th Centuries - First extinction theories and description of first prehistoric animals
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| Geological map of Ireland on stamp from 1995, MiNr.: 908, Scott: 978. |
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| William Smith (1769 - 1839), the "Father of English Geology". |
The increasing economic importance of mining in Great Britain made the possession of accurate knowledge about ores and their natural distribution critical. This need stimulated the rapid development of the science about deposits of different types of rocks and minerals, called Geology today.
To meet the increasing demand for minerals and ores, geologists began producing geological maps to show the distribution of rock types across various regions and countries.
William Smith (1769 - 1839), a surveyor who spent six years supervising the construction of the Somerset Canal in southwestern England, produced the first geological map of England in 1815.
While excavating the canal, Smith became deeply familiar with the sequence of rock layers exposed by the canal excavations. He noticed that the fossils embedded in these strata always appeared in the same vertical order — from the oldest at the base to the youngest at the top. As he travelled throughout England, he observed this pattern of fossil succession repeated wherever he went.
From these observations, Smith deduced that each fossil species had a characteristic, limited time range during which it was widespread, often overlapping with the ranges of other species. By matching identical fossil assemblages in rocks at different locations, Smith could determine their relative ages and reconstruct the chronological sequence of deposition across the country. Around 1799, While creating his geological maps, Smith encapsulated this insight in the Principle of Faunal Succession:
Fossil organisms succeed one another in a definite and recognizable order, so that rocks containing similar fossils are of a similar age, even if they are found in different locations.
This principle allowed him to date and correlate rock layers (strata) across wide areas using fossil content. For his pioneering work, William Smith is rightly celebrated as the “Father of English Geology”.Today, such fossils are known under term: "index fossils":
index fossils are the preserved remains of organisms that lived during a relatively short
geological time span, were geographically widespread, and are easily recognizable.
They are crucial for dating and correlating rock layers.
The most important ones are trilobites, ammonites, brachiopods and foraminifera (Planktonic forms).
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| Trilobite on postage stamp of Slovenia 2000,
MiNr.: 295; Scott: 397. |
Ammonite on postage stamp of Luxembourg 1984,
MiNr.: 1109; Scott: 716. |
Brachiopod on postage stamp of the British Antarctic Territory 1990,
MiNr.: 157; Scott: 154. |
Radiolarian, closely related to foraminifera on postage stamp of Norway 2005, MiNr.: 1553; Scott: 1449. | Micropaleontology on postage stamp of Tunisia 1974, MiNr.: 831; Scott: 627.
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As miners dug ever deeper to meet the growing demand for ores and minerals, they began unearthing increasingly unusual rocks. While some dismissed these as mere “sports of Nature,” many were unmistakably the bones and teeth of unfamiliar creatures.
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| Miners dug for ores and minerals on postmark of German Democratic Republic 1965, MiNr.: 1143; Scott: 797. |
How can it be that any organism created by God went extinct? Why did God allow it to vanish from the Earth?
Lacking a scientific explanation, fossil remains were variously ascribed to living animals—crocodiles, for example, victims of the Biblical Flood, or to the bones of legendary giants. It was not until 1835, with the founding of the British Geological Survey — the world’s first national geological survey, that systematic study of Earth’s history began in earnest. By the early 1800s, a handful of naturalists were already advancing new ideas about the origins and transformations of life, setting the stage for the emergence of modern geology and evolutionary theory.
Catastrophism
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| Georges Cuvier on postmarks of France 1969 and 2007. | |
In 1796, Cuvier introduced his theory of Catastrophism, arguing that many of the fossilized animals he studied represented species that had become extinct. According to Cuvier, Earth’s history was punctuated by sudden, violent upheavals catastrophes of possibly global scale that wiped out entire faunas. Unlike earlier thinkers, Cuvier did not attribute these mass extinctions to the Biblical Flood, nor did he invoke Divine creation to explain how new species appeared afterward.
By comparing fossil assemblages across different rock layers, he recognized multiple distinct extinction events and inferred that the Earth must be millions of years old, while the Church claimed the Earth is only six thousand years old. Influenced by the rational spirit of the French Revolution, Cuvier consciously steered clear of religious or metaphysical explanations in his scientific work.
Cuvier was influenced by the ideas of the French Revolution, avoided religious or metaphysical speculation in his scientific writings.
Charles Lyell (1797 - 1875) claimed the species in the fossil record had naturally became extinct as the world changed, so they were no longer suited to the new environment. New species were somehow created by a Divine act to suite to the new environment, then migrated from the centre of creation outwards.
Lamarckism
Four years later another French scientist proposed another theory. |
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| Jean Baptiste Lamarck on postmarks of France 1989 and 1979 | |
Lamarck proposed that, as animals encountered different environments, they adopted new habits that altered how they used their organs. Organs exercised frequently became stronger, while those seldom used grew weaker. For example, moles lost their eyesight through disuse, mammals developed teeth through frequent use, and birds remained toothless from lack of use. He argued that such “acquired” traits—gained during an individual’s lifetime—were inherited by its offspring. Over long periods, these small, inherited changes accumulated into significant morphological differences.
His classic giraffe example illustrates this process: ancestral giraffes, originally short‑necked like other herbivores, habitually stretched to reach foliage in tall trees. Through continual stretching, their necks gradually lengthened within each generation, and these lengthened necks were passed on to their young. After countless generations, this cumulative effect produced the modern long‑necked giraffe.
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| Prehistoric giraffids (short neck): Giraffa punjabiensis and Giraffokeryx punjabiensis on postage stamps of Nepal 2013 and 2017 respectively, MiNr.: 1123, 1252; Scott: 940, 1049. |
Modern giraffe (long neck): Giraffa camelopardalis on stamps of
Tanzania 1985 MiNr.: 168C, Scott: .
Equatorial Guinea 1974, MiNr.: 478, Scott: .
Poland 1972, MiNr.: 2163, Scott: 1889.
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Lamarck’s theory was ground-breaking in suggesting that animals were not fixed creations, but could adapt to their environments over time. He was among the first to argue that organisms change in response to their habits and surroundings rather than remaining exactly as God originally created them.
However, modern genetics has since refuted Lamarck’s mechanism of inheritance. We now understand that traits acquired during an individual’s lifetime, such as increased muscle mass or a stretched neck, are not passed down through DNA, and therefore Lamarck’s and related transformist theories are no longer accepted by the scientific community.
Homology
In 1822, in the same year the term Paleontology was introduced in France, Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772–1844), a contemporary and supporter of Lamarck, expanded and defended Lamarck’s evolutionary ideas. Geoffroy believed in the underlying unity of organismal design, and the possibility of the transmutation of species in time, amassing evidence for his claims through research in comparative anatomy, paleontology and embryology.Although Geoffroy professed belief in God, he viewed the universe as governed by natural laws without the need for supernatural intervention in the details of life’s development. In his "Anatomical Philosophy", he drew attention to anatomical puzzles that supported Lamarckian evolution. For example, he pointed out that the bat’s wing, the lungfish’s fin, and the human hand all occupy comparable positions and share similar structural elements, suggesting a common underlying plan modified in different lineages.
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| Structure of arm of different animals on postage stamps of North Korea 1999, MiNr.: Bl. 423; Scott: 3863. | Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire Etienne. |
Lamarck’s and Geoffroy’s ideas that Nature was autonomous and could almost randomly generate higher forms of existence without God was unthinkable for the majority of the scientific community of Europe, therefore their theories were met with criticism and were rejected.
The observation of Geoffroy about equivalent parts of skeletons in the different animals conformed and explained by the theory of evolution introduced by Charles Darwin more than 30 years later.
In 1843, Richard Owen (1804 - 1892), who was Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology at the Royal College of Surgeons of England and the man who coined the term "dinosaur" in 1841, introduced the concept of "Homology".
Owen defined it as the same organ appearing in different animals, adapted to various forms and functions. This referred to shared anatomical structures, such as the bat’s wing, lungfish’s fin, and human hand, that serve different purposes, but originate from a common template, as Saint-Hilaire had noted earlier.
Following the publication of Darwin’s "Origin of Species" in 1859, the concept of homology was reinterpreted through the lens of common descent. Darwin argued that homologous structures provided evidence for evolution from a shared ancestor.
Description of first prehistoric animals
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| Everard Home |
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| Mary Anning on stamp of UK 2024, MiNr.: 5391, Scott: . |
The fossil described by Home was discovered in 1811-1812 by Mary Anning (11 years old) and her elder brother Joseph. It was a complete skull and a torso of totally new species which did not resemble any living animal.
Home thought this animal formed a "connection between fish and crocodiles" in the Great Chain of Being and he declined to name it.
The Great Chain of Being is a hierarchical structure of all matter and life, thought by medieval Christianity to have been decreed by God. The chain begins with God and descends through angels, humans, animals, and plants, to minerals.
Many people continued to believe the Ichthyosaurus bones were not bones of once lived animal, but the “game of nature” – the stones in form of bones placed by God in the rocks to challenge believe of religious people.
In 1835 the British Museum purchased from Mary Anning (1799 - 1847) an Ichthyosaurus skeleton with the coprolite within its ribcage. Discovery of a coprolite (fossilized feces) within a fossil, was an important evidence the ichthyosaur was a once living animal, as only living organisms produce feces, after eating.
Some science historians note that fossils recovered by Anning may have also contributed, in part, to the theory of evolution put forth by Charles Darwin.
The Plesiosaurus fossil discovered by Mary Anning in 1823 was another puzzle for the scientists. When Georges Cuvier received the sketch of the fossil, he thought that it might be a forgery, a composite of two different animals either deliberated or mistakenly combined into one skeleton by Mary Anning. Cuvier didn't believe any animal can have so long neck, longer than the rest of the body. When a more detailed drawing of the specimen, created by Mary Anning, was forwarded to Cuvier, he recognized it as genuine.
Since then, the scientific community began to recognize the paleontological value of the fossils recovered by Mary Anning (young women from the labour class, at that time 25 years old) and her family.
As a result of the impression made by the fossil of the unusual animal, Cuvier held Anning in high regard, and mentioned her by name in his book "Recherces sur les ossemens fossiles", published in Paris in the same year (1824).
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| Prehistoric marine reptiles: Ichthyosaur, Plesiosaur and Plesiosaurus, described in 1830s by English naturalists, based on fossils discovered by Mary Anning, on stamps of the Royal Mail from 2013 and 2024 | |||
Ichthyosaurs and Plesiosaurus were not the only a prehistoric animal who puzzled scientists in the 19th century.
In 1824, William Buckland who was Professor of Geology at the University of Oxford and Dean of Christ Church described the jaw and several bones collected around Oxfordshire in the late 17th century. He did not know to what animal these bones belonged, he thought it was likely amphibious, living partially in land and water and he called it Megalosaurus, or great lizard.
William Buckland and the Megalosaurus jaw on postmark of South Korea 2001.
When Buckland realized from the shape of its teeth, that Megalosaurus was carnivorous he found himself in trouble.
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| The jaw of the Megalosaurus | Megalosaurus on one of the "Dinosaurs" stamps of UK 2013, MiNr.: 3534, Scott: 3236. |
The University of Oxford is one of the world's most prestigious and oldest universities. It was established in the 12th century, with teaching beginning around 1096 and it is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. The University of Oxford was initially founded to train clergy and scholars in theology, philosophy, and the liberal arts. The influence of religion remained in Oxford very strong in the 19th century. The goal of the science was to confirm the Bible story. Professors who tried to teach something that was in the contrary of the Bible could be banned from the University.
According to the Christian faith carnivorous animals were associated with violence, and evil had only begun on Earth with human decadence — with original sin. In the Garden of Eden, everything was peaceful and beautiful, and this carnivorous beast did not fit, it could not have been created by God. So, Buckland, who spent much of his early career trying to demonstrate the reality of the biblical flood using geological evidence, justified it by saying that Megalosaurus was a perfect killing machine, capable of causing death without pain, so God created it to eliminate suffering in an effective way. |
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| Gideon Mantell and his wife study Iguanodon teeth on postmark of China 2005 | Iguanodon on one of the "Dinosaurs" stamps of UK 2013, MiNr.: 3528, Scott: 3230. |
These three previously unknown to science animals were grouped into new suborder of the Saurian Reptiles in 1841 (on the next year the first adhesive postage stamp - the Penny Black was introduced in Great Britain) by the Anatomy Professor of the British Museum Richard Owen, who called them “Dinosaurs” meaning “terrible lizards”.
FDC "150th anniversary of Dinosaurs' identification by Sir Richard Owen", Great Britain 1991.
Embryology
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| Karl Ernst von Baer on postal stationery of Estonia 2017. |
Von Baer established several foundational principles of embryonic development. He observed that embryos begin with a general form and gradually develop more specialized features, and he rejected the idea that embryos of one species pass through the adult stages of others (a notion often misattributed to evolutionary theory). He proposed that developmental programs are inherited from ancestral species, meaning that closely related species should have similar, though not identical, embryos. As species diverge over evolutionary time, natural selection shapes their development in different ways, yet certain embryonic features remain as evidence of shared ancestry. These insights provided strong support for the concept of common descent by revealing structural similarities in embryonic development among vertebrates.
Natural Selection
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| Patrick Matthew (1790–1874) |
In the appendix of his book "On Naval Timber and Arboriculture", Matthew outlined a process in which the most robust or best-adapted organisms survive while others perish—a foundational concept of natural selection. He also suggested that species could go extinct and be replaced over time, driven by environmental pressures and competition.
Darwin did not know of Matthew’s work when writing the first edition of Origin of Species (1859).
In 1860, Matthew wrote a letter to a journal, pointing out that he had published the same core idea decades earlier.
Darwin publicly acknowledged Matthew’s priority in later editions of "Origin", including him in the “Historical Sketch”,
though he noted that Matthew’s ideas had gone unnoticed and had not influenced the scientific community or his own work:
“Mr. Patrick Matthew... published in 1831 a work on Naval Timber and Arboriculture, in which he gives precisely the same view on the origin
of species as that propounded by Mr. Wallace and myself... Unfortunately, the view was given very briefly in scattered passages.”
Evolution theory of Charles Darwin
In 1859, Charles Darwin published his most famous book "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life", by Charles Darwin, commonly known as just “On the Origin of Species”. In this book Darwin proposed that species change over time through a process called Natural Selection, where individuals with traits better suited to their environment are more likely to survive and reproduce, passing on those advantageous traits. This doesn’t necessarily mean the strongest or the fastest, but rather the ones whose traits (physical or behavioural) give them an advantage in their specific environment.Darwin’s central ideas on evolution remains powerful today and continue to drive many fields of biological science, including Paleontology and Paleoanthropology.
References
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