Editing Natural selection (section)

===Pre-Darwinian theories===
[[File:Aristotle Altemps Inv8575.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Aristotle]] considered whether different forms could have appeared, only the useful ones surviving.]]

Several philosophers of the [[classical era]], including [[Empedocles]]<ref>{{harvnb|Empedocles|1898|loc=[https://history.hanover.edu/texts/presoc/emp.html#book2 ''On Nature'', Book II]}}</ref> and his intellectual successor, the [[Roman Republic|Roman]] poet [[Lucretius]],<ref>{{harvnb|Lucretius|1916|loc=[http://classics.mit.edu/Carus/nature_things.5.v.html ''On the Nature of Things'', Book V]}}</ref> expressed the idea that nature produces a huge variety of creatures, randomly, and that only those creatures that manage to provide for themselves and reproduce successfully persist. Empedocles' idea that organisms arose entirely by the incidental workings of causes such as heat and cold was criticised by [[Aristotle]] in Book II of ''[[Physics (Aristotle)|Physics]]''.<ref>{{harvnb|Aristotle|loc=[http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/physics.2.ii.html ''Physics'', Book II, Chapters 4 and 8]}}</ref> He posited natural [[teleology]] in its place, and believed that form was achieved for a purpose, citing the regularity of heredity in species as proof.<ref>{{harvnb|Lear|1988|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=hSAGlzPLq7gC&pg=PA38 38]}}</ref><ref name="henry">{{cite journal |last=Henry |first=Devin |date=September 2006 |title=Aristotle on the Mechanism of Inheritance |url=http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1010&context=devinhenry |journal=Journal of the History of Biology |volume=39 |issue=3 |pages=425–455 |doi=10.1007/s10739-005-3058-y|s2cid=85671523 |url-access=subscription }}</ref> Nevertheless, he accepted [[Aristotle's biology|in his biology]] that new types of animals, [[congenital disorder|monstrosities]] (τερας), can occur in very rare instances (''[[Generation of Animals]]'', Book IV).<ref>{{harvnb|Ariew|2002}}</ref> As quoted in Darwin's 1872 edition of ''[[The Origin of Species]]'', Aristotle considered whether different forms (e.g., of teeth) might have appeared accidentally, but only the useful forms survived:
{{Blockquote|So what hinders the different parts [of the body] from having this merely accidental relation in nature? as the teeth, for example, grow by necessity, the front ones sharp, adapted for dividing, and the grinders flat, and serviceable for masticating the food; since they were not made for the sake of this, but it was the result of accident. And in like manner as to the other parts in which there appears to exist an adaptation to an end. Wheresoever, therefore, all things together (that is all the parts of one whole) happened like as if they were made for the sake of something, these were preserved, having been appropriately constituted by an internal spontaneity, and whatsoever things were not thus constituted, perished, and still perish.|Aristotle|''Physics'', Book II, Chapter 8<ref>{{harvnb|Darwin|1872|p=[http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=F391&viewtype=text&pageseq=18 xiii]}}</ref>}}

But Aristotle rejected this possibility in the next paragraph, making clear that he is talking about <!--ontogeny --> the [[Developmental biology|development of animals as embryos]] with the phrase "either invariably or normally come about", not <!--phylogeny -->the origin of species:
{{Quote|...&nbsp;Yet it is impossible that this should be the true view. For teeth and all other natural things either invariably or normally come about in a given way; but of not one of the results of chance or spontaneity is this true. We do not ascribe to chance or mere coincidence the frequency of rain in winter, but frequent rain in summer we do; nor heat in the dog-days, but only if we have it in winter. If then, it is agreed that things are either the result of coincidence or for an end, and these cannot be the result of coincidence or spontaneity, it follows that they must be for an end; and that such things are all due to nature even the champions of the theory which is before us would agree. Therefore action for an end is present in things which come to be and are by nature.|Aristotle|''Physics'', Book II, Chapter 8<ref>{{harvnb|Aristotle|loc=[http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/physics.2.ii.html ''Physics'', Book II, Chapter 8]}}</ref>}}

The [[Struggle for existence#Historical development|struggle for existence]] was later described by the [[Islam]]ic writer [[Al-Jahiz]] in the 9th century, particularly in the context of top-down population regulation, but not in reference to individual variation or natural selection.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Zirkle |first=Conway |author-link=Conway Zirkle |date=25 April 1941 |title=Natural Selection before the 'Origin of Species' |journal=[[Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society]]|volume=84 |issue=1 |pages=71–123 |jstor=984852}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Agutter|Wheatley|2008|p=43}}</ref>

At the turn of the 16th century [[Leonardo da Vinci]] collected a set of fossils of ammonites as well as other biological material. He extensively reasoned in his writings that the shapes of animals are not given once and forever by the "upper power" but instead are generated in different forms naturally and then selected for reproduction by their compatibility with the environment.<ref>{{cite book|title=Leonardo, Codex C.|year=2016|publisher=Institut of France. Trans. Richter}}</ref>

The more recent classical arguments were reintroduced in the 18th century by [[Pierre Louis Maupertuis]]<ref>{{cite journal |last=Maupertuis |first=Pierre Louis |author-link=Pierre Louis Maupertuis |year=1746 |title=''Les Loix du mouvement et du repos déduites d'un principe metaphysique'' |trans-title=[[s:Translation:Derivation of the laws of motion and equilibrium from a metaphysical principle#I. Assessment of the Proofs of God's Existence that are Based on the Marvels of Nature|"Derivation of the laws of motion and equilibrium from a metaphysical principle"]] |language=fr |journal=Histoire de l'Académie Royale des Sciences et des Belles Lettres |location=Berlin |pages=267–294 |title-link=s:fr:Les Loix du mouvement et du repos déduites d'un principe metaphysique }}</ref> and others, including Darwin's grandfather, [[Erasmus Darwin]].

Until the early 19th century, the [[History of creationism#Renaissance to Darwin|prevailing view]] in [[Western world|Western societies]] was that differences between individuals of a species were uninteresting departures from their [[Theory of Forms|Platonic ideals]] (or [[wikt:typus|typus]]) of [[Baraminology|created kinds]]. However, the theory of [[uniformitarianism]] in geology promoted the idea that simple, weak forces could act continuously over long periods of time to produce radical changes in the Earth's landscape. The success of this theory raised awareness of the vast scale of [[Geologic time scale|geological time]] and made plausible the idea that tiny, virtually imperceptible changes in successive generations could produce consequences on the scale of differences between species.<ref name="Bowler 2003">{{cite book |last=Bowler |first=Peter J. |year=2003 |title=Evolution: The History of an Idea |edition=3rd |location=Berkeley, CA |publisher=[[University of California Press]] |isbn=978-0-520-23693-6 |oclc=43091892 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/evolutionhistory0000bowl_n7y8/page/129 129–134], [https://archive.org/details/evolutionhistory0000bowl_n7y8/page/158 158] |url=https://archive.org/details/evolutionhistory0000bowl_n7y8/page/129 }}</ref>

The early 19th-century zoologist [[Jean-Baptiste Lamarck]] suggested the [[inheritance of acquired characteristics]] as a mechanism for evolutionary change; adaptive traits acquired by an organism during its lifetime could be inherited by that organism's progeny, eventually causing [[transmutation of species]].<ref>{{harvnb|Lamarck|1809}}</ref> This theory, [[Lamarckism]], was an influence on the Soviet biologist [[Trofim Lysenko]]'s ill-fated antagonism to mainstream genetic theory as late as the mid-20th century.<ref name="Joravsky">{{cite journal |last=Joravsky |first=David |date=January 1959 |title=Soviet Marxism and Biology before Lysenko |journal=[[Journal of the History of Ideas]] |volume=20 |issue=1 |pages=85–104 |doi=10.2307/2707968 |jstor=2707968 }}</ref>

Between 1835 and 1837, the zoologist [[Edward Blyth#On natural selection|Edward Blyth]] worked on the area of variation, artificial selection, and how a similar process occurs in nature. Darwin acknowledged Blyth's ideas in the first chapter on variation of ''On the Origin of Species''.<ref>{{harvnb|Darwin|1859|p=[http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=33&itemID=F373&viewtype=text 18]}}</ref>