EVOLUTION × TECHNOLOGY

Descent with Modification

1859 CE

Phanerozoic · Cenozoic · Quaternary · Holocene · Meghalayan

One argument tied every living thing to a common ancestry and explained the fit between an organism and its world without a designer. It needs only three observations: offspring differ from their parents, more are born than can survive, and the differences affect which ones do. Whatever survives more often becomes more common. Wallace arrived at the same argument independently.

Why it matters

Everything else on this timeline is read through it. Before, the fossils and the strata were a sequence: this, then that, for reasons nobody could give. After, they were a family tree, and the order became an explanation. Every date on this page is a point on a branch.

Sources

1. Ayala (2010), Infection, Genetics and Evolution · Darwin's explanation of design: from natural theology to natural selection
2. Schemske (2010), The American Naturalist · Adaptation and the origin of species
3. Hunt (2010), The American Naturalist · Evolution in fossil lineages: paleontology and The Origin of Species

Earth history as one day

23:59:59.99683.2 ms before midnight

if Earth’s 4.54 billion years were compressed into a single day