History of the Theory of EvolutionThe idea that traits are passed down from parents to offspring has been around since the ancient Greek philosophers' time. In the middle 1700s, Carolus Linnaeus came up with his taxonomic naming system, which grouped like species together and implied there was an evolutionary connection between species within the same group.The late 1700s saw the first theories that species changed over time. Scientists like the Comte de Buffon and Charles Darwin's grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, both proposed that species changed over time, but neither man could explain how or why they changed. They also kept their ideas under wraps due to how controversial the thoughts were compared to accepted religious views at the time.