who developed the idea of evolution by natural selection
Natural selection Several philosophers of the classical era, including Empedocles[1] and his intellectual successor, the Roman poet Lucretius,[2] expressed the idea that nature produces a huge variety of creatures, randomly, and that only those creatures that manage to provide for themselves and reproduce successfully persist. Empedocles' idea that organisms arose entirely by the incidental workings of causes such as heat and cold was criticised by Aristotle in Book II of Physics.[3] He posited natural teleology in its place, and believed that form was achieved for a purpose, citing the regularity of heredity in species as proof.[4][5] Nevertheless, he accepted in his biology that new types of animals, monstrosities (τερας), can occur in very rare instances (Generation of Animals, Book IV).[6] As quoted in Darwin's 1872 edition of The Origin of Species, Aristotle considered whether different forms (e.g., of teeth) might have appeared accidentally, but only the useful forms survived: