Bruno Chantrel is a retired biology professor who fell in love with Ariège and who has lived in Saint-Martin-d’Oydes since 2000. He was invited by the Université Populaire du Pays de Foix (UPPF) to present this which has fascinated him since a young age, the evolution of living things.
He asked his listeners to follow him from antiquity to the present day. Aristotle was the first to try to bring order to biodiversity. He proposed a classification that placed humans at the top of the list (with gods out of category) and classified the different species down to inanimate bodies. After the Greek philosopher, nothing more happened in this area until the 17th century. It was only with Magellan, Galileo, Newton, Descartes and many others that the living world was studied in its entirety and that substantial advances were made in the 18th century. Linnaeus proposed a common language for all living species which is still used today. Buffon, Cuvier, Lamarck, Réaumur work to understand and organize biodiversity.
A light by Darwin
Finally, Darwin sheds decisive light on the subject with two key words, chance and evolution. Everything then becomes clearer and coherent but not everyone adheres to these ideas. Finally, the speaker presents modern classification methods first with proteins and now with DNA which allows extremely precise explorations.
