Describe the views of scientists of different eras on the origin of man.

From deep antiquity, information came that people’s tribes considered themselves to be descendants of various animals: a bear, a falcon, a fish, and others. Philosophers of Ancient Greece even before our era expressed thoughts that a person has a natural origin. Then, for almost one and a half thousand years from the beginning of our era, divine views on the origin of man dominated. With the development of science in the XVII — XVIII centuries. and on the basis of accumulated knowledge about the diversity of living organisms, natural scientists began to increasingly become convinced of the similarity of the structure of man and animals. Somewhat later, J. B. Lamarck put forward a hypothesis about the origin of man from ape-like ancestors. C. Darwin in 1871 published the work “The Origin of Man and Sexual Selection,” where he proved the relationship of man with anthropoid apes.