Early Evolutionists

George-Louis Leclerc de Buffon (1707-1788) was among the first to propose that the species on Earth in the present were different from those long ago, although he still believed in creation.

James Hutton (1726-1797) was a geologist who proposed that the Earth was created through slow and gradual processes.

William Smith (1769-1839) was an English surveyor who studied the distribution of fossils in various strata or layers. He found certain types of fossils always appeared in the same strata.

Jean Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) was the first to propose that species change with time. His theory had three important ideas:

• Use and disuse referred to how body parts of organisms grow stronger with use and atrophy with disuse.
  
  
• Inheritance of acquired characteristics incorrectly described how things like muscle mass could be passed onto offspring.
  
  
• Natural transformation of species incorrectly described how species split into different species instead of going extinct.