1794: Erasmus Darwin, Charles Darwin’s grandfather, publishes Zoonomia [203]

Art Piece: Three Recumbent Animals on a Plaque, Near Eastern, 9th-7th century BCE [128]

Paper: The Early “Evolution” of “Punctuated Equilibria” [51]

Prior to Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, there were a few precursors of what would later become Darwinian evolutionary thought. One individual who held such pre-Darwin precursor beliefs was Charles Darwin’s own grandfather, Erasmus Darwin. Erasmus Darwin published Zoonomia, a two-volume text [53] which aimed to classify animal facts and discuss the laws describing organic life, as well catalog diseases and their respective treatments. Erasmus Darwin’s ideas regarding evolution are now often deemed more ‘materialistic’ than that of his grandson’s, with Erasmus’ ideas seeming to be closer to Lamarckian ideas of inheritance of acquired characteristics. Notably, Erasmus writes in Zoonomia, “would it be too bold to imagine…that all warm-blooded animals have arisen from one living filament…and thus possessing the faculty of continuing to improve by its own inherent activity, and of delivering down those improvements by generation to its posterity, world without end?” [53] Though these ideas may seem similar to Charles Darwin’s, Erasmus’ ideas were rather less based on the careful observations that Charles may have made — for instance, although Erasmus discusses “improvements by generation,” he does not describe a mechanism which allows for these “improvements” to occur. Charles Darwin on the other hand was able to articulate a pretty substantial mechanism which induces changes in populations and leads to speciation — i.e. natural selection. Erasmus’ Zoonomia still does represent a paradigm shift of sorts, though, because his ideas are still somewhat reminiscent of Charles Darwin’s (though they are not as accurate as Charles Darwin’s), and represent the way that many intellectuals at the time were thinking about organisms changing over time. The artwork above [128], which is actually a sculpture of three animals, is also representative of Erasmus Darwin’s Zoonomia: the sculpture is made of bronze, a material that is less ‘sophisticated’ than a material like gold. This is similar to the interplay between Charles’ and Erasmus’ ideas — where Erasmus’ ideas were more crude and less ‘refined’ as compared to gold, Charles’ ideas can be said to be more ‘sophisticated,’ since he had so much evidence and anecdotes to back up his ideas and claims. Moreover, the sculpture is of animals, which is relevant to evolution, as the theory deals with changes in organisms over time. The scientific paper above [51] also adds more layers to the ideas surrounding Darwinian evolution. Though Charles Darwin’s ideas on evolution are widely accepted today, many still considered similar but somewhat different theories, like that of punctuated equilibria, which proposes [169] that the “creation of new species through evolution occurs not at slow, relatively constant rates over millions of years, but rather that these changes occur in rapid bursts over shorter periods of thousands of years, which are then followed by long periods of stability during which organisms undergo little further change.” All things considered, Erasmus Darwin’s ideas were important as indicators of pre vs post-(Charles) Darwinian thought.