2. According to the textbook, Charles Lyell is considered the founder of modern geology. He was a lawyer and a geologist. He was also Darwin's friend and mentor for some time. He was the one to demonstrate that environmental forces had all contributed in the past to create the geological landscape today.
According to Encyclopedia Brittanica, 11th ed, his chief work was called "The Principals of Modern Geology." He also published "Elements of Geology." His third greatest work was called, "The Antiquity of Man" which appeared in 1863. In this work he gave a general survey of the arguments for man's early appearance on earth. In this work, he agreed to Darwin's theory of the origin of species.
http://www.gennet.org/facts/lyell.html
3. If the environment changes, the traits that are helpful or adaptive to that enviornment will be different. He spent a lot of time trying to prove the theory of uniformitarianism which is the theory that the earth's features are the result of long-term processes that continue to operate in the present as they did in the past. He believed that the geological processes that we see today are the same that have previously occured. I think that this had a positive effect on Darwin because it gave him some ideas about his theory on the origin of species. If he had never met Lyell he might not have ever come up with his theories or ideas.
4. I don't think that Darwin would have developed his theories without the influence of Charles Lyell because Charles Lyell was his mentor for quite some time, and mentors usually have a big influence over their students. Someone who had a good mentor would come up with better theories because a good mentor would have good ideas, and Charles Lyell was obviously a very credible geologist.
5. According to the text, during the 1820s, the idea of evolution was frowned upon. People began to associate evolution with atheism. It was believed that if evolutionary theory was accepted that the church would "crash." If evolution was accepted that would make everything in the bible a lie. At the time, Darwin had a short summary written about natural selection, but did not publish his ideas because his work could have been considered highly controversial.
Very good discussion with just a couple of corrections:
ReplyDeleteFirst, the main contribution of Lyell to Darwin was that of time. Remember that before this, it was generally believed that the earth was only 6000 years old, not enough time for Darwin's mechanism of natural selection to generate the diversity of life we have on this planet. Lyell's work gave Darwin millions of years to work with and made his theory workable.
Actually (and ironically), Lyell didn't agree with the concept of evolution but he was a lifelong supporter of Darwin's work regardless. A mark of a good friend!
One caution: Your source links to a creationist website. Do you think you can rely upon that source to present scientific concepts reliably without bias?