> Oliver writes:
>
> >After you are both thus convinced that common descent was widely held by
> >most scientists before Darwin, could you give me the exact references?
> >I ever thought it was Darwin who brought the scientific community to drop
> >the belief the constancy of species or a little higher category.
>
> Erasmus Darwin, Charles grandfather had advanced a pretty serious theory of
> evolution including the evolution of man, but It has been a while since I
> read the material. THere were plenty of others.
>
I know that there have been many proposals for a theory of evolution
before Darwin, but I thought this was only a minority even within the
scientific community, but the emails seem to suggest that common descent
was accepted before Darwin.
Oliver