The process of rejection is commonly considered to have begun with Descartes and to have culminated in Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection.įundamental to natural selection is the idea of change by common descent. This is due primarily to today's rejection by biologists of a teleological view of evolution in favor of a more mechanistic one. In current times, to some, the terms "evolution" and "God" may look like unlikely bed fellows (see the discussion on teleology). Read Srila Prabhupada's View of Charles Robert Darwin It was the medieval philosophers, such as Augustine, who began to incorporate teleological views of nature with religion: God is the designer of all creatures, and everything has a purpose and a place as ordained by Him. For example, Aristotle classified all living organisms hierarchically in his great scala naturae or Great Chain of Being, with plants at the bottom, moving through lesser animals, and on to humans at the pinnacle of creation, each becoming progressively more perfect in form. Greek and medieval references to "evolution" use it as a descriptive term for a state of nature, in which everything in nature has a certain order or purpose. This theory is sometimes crudely referred to as the theory of "survival of the fittest." It was proposed by Charles Darwin in On the Origin of Species in 1859 and, independently, by Alfred Wallace in 1858-although Wallace, unlike Darwin, said the human soul is not the product of evolution.
![charles robert darwin charles robert darwin](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-veLcCiCDrxk/Vmh7I5QsysI/AAAAAAAACXY/-yMNN2-dVgQ/s1600/anivers%C3%A1riosfev.jpg)
That use of the term dates back to the ancient Greeks, but today the word is more often used to refer to Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. Although this broad version of the term would include astronomical evolution and the evolution of computer design, this article focuses on the evolution of biological organisms.
![charles robert darwin charles robert darwin](https://cdn.slidesharecdn.com/ss_thumbnails/charlesrobertdarwin-140327063711-phpapp02-thumbnail-4.jpg)
He word "evolution" in its broadest sense refers to change or growth that occurs in a particular order.