The Day The Universe Changed: Darwin’s Revolution Film

  1. Carolus Linnaeus, Swedish Botanist, sought to understand the order in nature.
  2. He classified plants by the position of their sex organs and published Systema Naturae in its 10th edition in 1758. His studies were carried out at Upsula, Sweden.
  3. The “Great Chain of Being” was a Swiss idea based upon Aristotle’s “Ladder of Life.”
  4. The French zoo keeper , Buffont, of The Paris Zoo wrote a series of 44 volumes of natural history books in 1778 discussing the similarities of living things.
  5. The English surveyor - engineer Smith while building canals discovered the principle that different layers of geological strata each have distinctive fossils. He first discussed the idea of the possibility of extinction.
  6. In 1794, Geroges Cuvier of the Paris Natural history Museum (the old zoo) studied comparative anatomy and gave a historic lecture on the idea of extinction. In 1808 he developed the idea that catastrophies caused the extinction of species.
  7. Oxford professor William Butland said that extinctions was caused by the Biblical great flood. He published on the idea in 1823. He could not explain the extinction of fishes. He ate grilled mice on toast!
  8. Hutton, Scottish geologist studied the effects of erosion.
  9. Butland student, George Scroff, investigated the effects of erosion on ancient lava flows.
  10. Butland student, Sir Charles Leyell, who published the book, Principles of Geology, studied Mount Aetna in Italy in 1826. He discovered that there were volcanic cones on top of cones suggesting great age. He then found fossil clam shells in limestone deposits running under the entire volcano. It meant that they were millions of years old proving an ancient earth.
  11. In 1857 Alfred Russell Wallace traveled in Malaysia collecting insects and by doing so discovered the principles of“Natural Selection.” He wrote to Charles Darwin informing him of his discoveries. This prompted the publication of Darwin’s book, Origin of the Species.
  12. Both had read the political essay of Thomas Malthus about human population density and the food supply. Both knew that it applied not only to humans but also plants and animals also.
  13. Zoologist, scientist, philosopher Earnest Heckle published the Natural History of Creation in 1868 and The Riddle of the Universe in 1899. He was an atheist that thought that Darwin had all the answers and thus justified the concept of“survival of the fittest” in human terms.
  14. His writings were the foundation of Teutonic racist thought. This was first embraced by King Ludwig of Bavaria. His ideas were accepted by Hienrik Hiemler and Adolph Hitler to justify genocide.
  15. Yale University professor Sumner applied these same writing to business procedures in the United States. He published his ideas in 1883.
  16. Karl Marx was also influenced by these ideas and Vladimer Ulyanov (Lenin) carried them to Russia. This started the Russian Revolution in October of 1917 and Communism came into existence.
  17. These ideas of Earnest Heckle are called “Social Darwinism” today. They try justify the actions and enslavement of weaker nations and peoples. Such thinking is a reversion to Platonic thinking as opposed to Aristotelian rational.
  18. The end results were the two world wars and enslavement and deaths of millions!