Before the concept of Evolution developed in the 18th century, how did most Europeans think about...?

Question

... the history of life on Earth?

A) Unchanging
B) Change, but only very gradually
C) Sudden changes followed by periods of little or no change
D) Assumed descent from a single common ancestor, but directed by God
E) Made no sense, gave people a headache thinking about it.

Please give explanations to your answer. Thanks

Answer 1

Probably D...

God & religion played such a big part in European thinking for the previous millennium, that scientific evolution came as a major shock to European intellect...

Even Newton "threw-in" the concept of the Absolute, as the ultimate explanation of his science, which Einstein had to re-define in the 20th Century...

Answer 2

You had alot of people who bought into the idea that things were the way things are for a long long time and that God created everything more or less as it was.

The first to approach the problem was a Mr. Spalinzanni, an Italian chemist/scientist in the early 1600's , he started rocking the boat by refuting scientifically the idea of "spontaneous generation" , which was that life just grew out of nothing. Microbes, mold, spores and such were not known to the people of that day (since microscopes were still about 100 years in the future). He did a series of experiments with Chicken Broth in flasks which were opened or closed after boiling. He knew two things.

1. Boiling food was "preservative" and
2. Sealed flasks did not seem to spontaneously generate life.

So he made the bold statement that there were very small animals present in the air which we could not see and which just floated around. (he was right), but was almost excommunicated and nearly hung for his statements.

At about the same time, there was a monk of the Catholic Church who suggesting that the Earth existed as a planet in a solar system (from Copernicus), and that our solar system was one amongst an infinite variety of other star systems. Furthermore he suggested there was no reason God could not have created life on these other worlds. The church had him burned at the stake and some years later "officially" came out against the Copernican view of the universe - which is essentially correct.

Let's just say that if you think Christian Fundamentalists are hostile towards learning and science today, some of their predecessors definitely make them seem mild in comparison, since having facts and data could still get you killed.

Answer 3

First - the concept of evolution as we understand today developed in the the 19th century, not the 18th.

Originally there was the concept of the Great Chain of Being - god created everything in its placed and nothing changed -
early notice of extinctions were explained away as the result of Noah's flood or some other wrath of God event (concept of Catastrophism)

Eventually (in large part through Geology) people started to realize that change had occured - but how and why became the goal. Lamrack suggested that it was based on need and that a creature could change phyiscally during its lifetime and then pass that change on to the next generation (Giraffe stretch its neck trying to feed higher in trees - next generation would start with longer neck and stretch it some more..etc.)
This was disproven by cutting tails off of mice - offspring still had tails.

Geologist Charles Lyell developed concept of Uniformitarianism - processes noted today have always been happening, slowly changing the earth. this was then applied to biology - with Darwin identifying Natural Selection as the force behind the change.

Answer 4

Yeah, I agree with the one who said the Great Chain of Being. Also I think there was something about after the Tower of Babel fell, a degeneration of civilizations. Some people lost their civilizations and became savages.

Answer 5

B probably.
they could see empires rise and die around them.

They could see forests shrinking and animals hunted into extinction.

They also did find dinosaur bones, and thought they belonged to some dragons from fairy tales.

I hope you are not gonna use "people believed it for thousands of years" argument. People used to believe that earth was flat too, and stars were dots on a dome above them.