Ch2 Development of Evolutionary Theory

Question 1

Stasis vs. Change

Answer 1

Stasis
- Things not changing, (geographic landscapes and organisms) everything exists like it always had
Change
- Idea of change is relatively new in Western science (17th century)
- Not used to gradual change, all changes had been earthquakes etc.. No one had seen the evolution of a new species

Question 2

Fixity of Species

Answer 2

• The notion that species were created once and did not change after that
• “God’s great design”- Driven by Christianity

Question 3

Plato

Answer 3

• Forms could only be perceived by the mind
• “reality existed as the form of the thing we interpret as in-perfect”
• It was our imperfection that prevented us from seeing things in their true form

Question 4

Aristotle

Answer 4

• Great Chain of Being
• Ordered, hierarchical, static view
• Essentialism- all things exist in a fixed position as they are where they are
• Simple to complex

Question 5

European Middle Ages (5th -15th AD)

Answer 5

• Ideas of Christianity were the only “truth”
• To challenge this idea was punishable by death
• All life on earth was created by god exactly as it exists today
• Fixity of Species
• Why anatomical structures look and work the way they do
  God the “grand designer” made everything in a perfect form to meet the purpose they were required

Question 6

European Enlightenment (17th-19th C)

Answer 6

• Socio-political, economic, and scientific revolution

- Set off by debate about whether earth revolves around the sun

Question 7

Geocentrism

Answer 7

• The idea that we are the centre of the universe

- The sun revolves around the earth

Question 8

Heliocentrism

Answer 8

• Argued earth goes around the sun

- Challenged the perception that we are the centre of the universe, and suggested that we are just one of many planets

Question 9

Three Major Paradigm Shifts

Answer 9

1. Time
2. Diversity
3. Mutability

Question 10

Time: James Usher

Answer 10

Based his chronology on:

• Lifespan of makes from the old testament
• Length of Reign of kings
• Theorized the age of the earth and the age of mankind 4004

Question 11

Time: James Hutton

Answer 11

• Uniformitarianism
• Erosion, replacement, etc. of rocks, and realized that these changes must have taken an infinite amount of time to get to where it is now
• Came up with the idea that the same forces that were operating in the past and present are the same, sediments build up, volcanoes emerge

Question 12

Time: Georges Cuvier

Answer 12

Catastrophism
- He proposed that there were “addition” events that happened after catastrophic events, creating more animals (god)

• Father of vertebrate palaeontology
• Developed comparative method that established extinction as a fact
• Compared fossils to living forms of those animals
• **Did not believe in evolution

Question 13

Diversity: John Ray

Answer 13

• Came up with species and genus
• Placed reproductively isolated organisms into categories
• Groups of plants and animal separated from other groups by ability to mate and produce fertile offspring

Question 14

Diversity: Carlous Linnaeus

Answer 14

-	Founded modern method of taxonomic classification 
Ex. 
CLASS Mammalia 
ORDER Primates
GENUS Homo
SPECIES Sapiens

• Included humans in the scheme – controversial

Question 15

Mutability: Count Buffon

Answer 15

• Founder of zoogeography

- Strong links between biology and geography

Question 16

Micro vs. Macroevolution

Answer 16

Micro
- Change in frequency of characteristics within a population over the span of a few generations
Macro
- Speciation events, generally occurring over a long period of geologic time

Question 17

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck

Answer 17

1809 book “Zoological Philosophy: Exposition with Regard to the Natural History of Animals”

Two laws:

1. Use and disuse
   - Use or disuse will cause development or reduction of parts
2. Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics
   - Changes resulting from use and disuse can be transmitted to offspring

Question 18

Thomas Malthus

Answer 18

1978 book “An Essay in the Principle of Population”
- In nature, populations increase in size but the amount of resources stay the same
- Competition for resources
Reproductive Fitness
- A measure of success of an individual in the production of offspring across generations

Question 19

Sir Charles Lyell

Answer 19

Principles of Geology

• Built on Hutton’s work to demonstrate forces of wind, water, erosion, flooding, frost, decomposition, volcanoes, earthquakes etc. and how they produced the geological landscape of today
• Most are slow acting

Question 20

Charles Darwin

Answer 20

1844 book “Vestiges if the Natural History of Creation”
1859 “On the Origin of Species”
- 5-year scientific voyage on the HMS Beagle 1831
- Galapagos Islands- studied the differences in finches’ beaks

Question 21

Natural Selection

Answer 21

1. All individuals vary
   - size, colouration, behaviour, speed, health, prowess, ect. - some of this variation is heritable (passed onto offspring)
2. All populations reproduce at rates in excess of resources
3. Competition for resources occurs among individuals within populations

Therefore favourable traits will be passed to next generation

Question 22

Speciation

Answer 22

• Later generations become more and more distinct from their ancestor
• Over time new species will appear

Question 23

Opposition to Evolution (USA) (After ww1)

Answer 23

• After WW1 conservative Christians in the United States wanted to resort to “traditional values”
• Tried to ban the public mention of evolution
• In 1925 in Tennessee a law passed that banned evolution
• This continued in some states until 1968

Question 24

Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham

Answer 24

• February 4th, 2014 debated the question “Is Creation a Viable Model of Origins”
• Drew significant national attention, more than 3 million live viewers when it happened
• Many scientists feel that even debating this with creationists gives their ideas too much credit and validity