Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection: A Scientific Revolution

[Jimmy Snyder]

I know zip about biology, but I know a little physics. Before Einstein's general theory of relativity challenged it, the prevailing scientific theory of gravitation was Newton's theory. In the minds of most physicists, the issue was resolved in favor of Einstein's theory as a result of an experiment involving an eclipse of the sun. It was the prototypical scientific revolution. Now my two questions:

1. What was the prevailing scientific theory(s) that Darwin's theory of natural selection challenged?

2. What experiment(s) resolved the issue in favor of Darwin's theory in the minds of most biologists?

 

[matthyaouw]

Before Darwin, prevailing views were creationism and Lamarckian evolution. Lamarck suggested that animals acquired carachteristics to suit their needs. If an animal lived at high altitude, their lungs would grow stronger and larger, and this characteristic would be passed on to its offspring.
Darwin's book, "The Origin of Species" was the main body of evidence (along with Alfred Russel Wallace's work of the same period), and experiments involving cutting the tails off mice and seeing if their offspring acquired shorter tails provided evidence against Lamarckism. Gregor Mendel's pea plant research (conducted earlier, but not re-discovered until the early 20th centuary) provided evidence that characteristics were passed on to offspring.

 

[russ_watters]

There apparently wasn't much before the theory we know today. As with all theories, Darwin was inspired by earlier work: Malthus's essay on human population operated on the same operating premise. Others around the same time considered the progressive nature of species change, but didn't offer good evidence or a good means by which it happened. But before scientists really started looking at it (remember, "science" didn't really exist until ~1600), Biblical creationism was pretty much it.

An interesting link:
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/history_14

Google: "evolution history"

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/history_14

I checked out this site, and I was most intrigued by the final sentence:

It would take the discovery of genes and mutations in the twentieth century to make natural selection not just attractive as an explanation, but unavoidable.

A statement like that hints that there is some experiment that would decide between Darwinism and Lamarckism. I intend to look into this further.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Is natural selection considered to be a 'falsifiable' theory? If so, what experiment is considered to be capable of falsifying it?