Page 139 - Global Freemasonry
P. 139
Harun Yahya (Adnan Oktar)
Though, here we must mention the name of another theoretician who
played an important role in the origins of the theory of evolution: Erasmus
Darwin, Charles Darwin's grandfather.
Erasmus Darwin was an eighteenth century contemporary of
Lamarck. A physicist, psychologist and poet, he was recognized as an au-
thority. His biographer, Desmond King-Hele even called him the greatest
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Englishman of the eighteenth century. But, Erasmus Darwin had a very
dark private life. 100
Erasmus Darwin is mainly noted as one of England's most prominent
naturalists. As we said at the beginning, naturalism is a view that does not
accept that Allah created living things. Actually, this view, which is close
to materialism, was the starting point of Erasmus Darwin's theory of evo-
lution.
In the 1780's and 90's, Erasmus Darwin developed the main outlines
of theory of evolution, according to which all living things came from a
single common ancestor by chance and according to the laws of nature.
He did his research in an eight acre botanic garden he had prepared, and
sought evidence that would prove his idea. He explained his theory in
two books, entitled Temple of Nature and Zoonomia. Moreover, in 1784 he
Erasmus Darwin, Charles Darwin's Erasmus Darwin's book Zoonomia, in which he laid
grandfather was a "Master Mason." the foundations for the theory of evolution.
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