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Author Topic:   Early formulation of the theory of evolution
Parasomnium
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Posts: 2224
Joined: 07-15-2003


Message 1 of 1 (540095)
12-22-2009 5:17 AM


This is really remarkable: it appears that about a thousand years before Darwin, an Islamic scholar already wrote down what can be called a theory of evolution. In itself this may be surprising, but even more so is his exact formulation, which, at least in translation, comes eerily close to Darwin's idea. The scholar was known as al-Jahiz (although his real name was Abu Uthman Amr ibn Bahr al-Kinani al-Fuqaimi al-Basri), and he lived in the ninth century (781-868) in what is now Iraq.
This is what al-Jahiz wrote:
quote:
"Animals engage in a struggle for existence [and] for resources, to avoid being eaten and to breed...Environmental factors influence organisms to develop new characteristics to ensure survival, thus transforming into new species. Animals that survive to breed can pass on their successful characteristics to [their] offspring."
In al-Jahiz's day, Islamic science had not yet been stifled by the influential philosophy of al-Ghazali, who effectively froze the Islamic world in time with his orthodoxy, slamming the door to progress in science and other fruitful enterprises tightly shut.
The little gem above is quoted in a review of a book about the history of science in Islam. The rest of the review doesn't deal with it any further, but it seemed interesting enough to merit a mention here in the book nook. (As for myself, I'd like to try and get my hands on the book, as it would be a welcome addition to my collection of books on the history and philosophy of science.)
Edited by Parasomnium, : replace underscore with hyphen
Edited by Parasomnium, : add "to"

"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin.

  
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