Darwin

Question 1

What is the concept of the origin of species?

Answer 1

Evolution, natural selection, based observations, of facts. The relatedness of species and the sequence of changes toward perfect adaptation. Key label is natural selection.

Question 2

What is the second key label for the concept of the origin of species?

Answer 2

Survival of the fittest. Spencer created this term.

Question 3

According to Barzun, Darwin’s theory was appeal and popular because his theory explained changes by means of a scientific “true cause” that replaced what other explanation(s)?

Answer 3

It substituted a “true cause” for the “metaphysical” sort of explanation.

Question 4

What practice did Darwin notice by Luther Burbank and others that led Darwin to see that a similar process was happening in nature? The natural version of the process favors what kinds of plants & animals?

Answer 4

Burbank was able to create new varieties of plants to the skill with which he could pick out a dozen seedlings from several thousand. The bonfires of rejected ones testified to the degree of his selectiveness. Certain traits are selected for. Similarly Darwin starts with random variations—unexplained—and the selection of certain of them by man for the breeding of specially useful varieties or “races.” Natural selection is the same process occurring in the wild state but selects for the traits that help the plants and animals to best survive.

Question 5

Barzun says Malthus used the religious word, “Providence.” What does this word mean? What did Matlthus see in the world that he declared to be “providential?”

Answer 5

Providence is the protective care of God or of nature as a spiritual power. The beneficent Providence consisted in the natural checks to the growth of population: war, famine, and disease.

Question 6

Barzun then says “By substituting natural selection for providence, the new science could solve a host of riddles. . .”–and in doing this, what does science become?

Answer 6

Science becomes a religion.

Question 7

Darwin acknowledges anothher predecessor, an Anglican minister with a theory of population. Name the man, describe his theory, and explain why it leads to an idea of struggle for existence.

Answer 7

Thomas Malthus. Theory: populations reach a carry capacity due to environmental resistance.

Question 8

Darwin acknowledges anothher predecessor, an Anglican minister with a theory of population. Name the man, describe his theory, and explain why it leads to an idea of struggle for existence.

Answer 8

Thomas Malthus. Theory: populations reach a carry capacity due to environmental resistance. It leads to competition for resources in the environment.

Question 9

Lamarck

Answer 9

Had famous idea of “use inheritance”. Geological evidence shows clear signs of environmental change. Animals will pass on traits that they developed in life.

Question 10

Comte

Answer 10

Showed evolution of human thinking. Also he insisted on a mechanism, a material case for every pheromone.

Question 11

Herbert spencer

Answer 11

Used the term “survival of the fittest”.

Wrote “the developmental hypothesis” and “Progress- it’s law and course”. Known for social Darwinism.

Question 12

Bonnet

Answer 12

First to use the word “evolution”.

Question 13

Buffon

Answer 13

First to catalogue hundreds of species of plants. He hinted the idea of development.he noted ch age in environment. He began to speak of adaptation and studied skeletons and “speculated” about common ancestry.

Question 14

Erasmus Darwin

Answer 14

All animals originated in a “single filament.” Evolution comes from creatures desire to survive by adapting to environmental changes. Catastrophes play a role in spurring evolution.

Question 15

Incrementalism

Answer 15

Belief in or advocacy of change by degrees; gradualism.

Question 16

Vestigial organs

Answer 16

Vestigiality refers to genetically determined structures or attributes that have apparently lost most or all of their ancestral function in a given species, but have been retained during the process of evolution.

Question 17

Geometric profession of population

Answer 17

2,4,6,8?

Question 18

Social Darwinism

Answer 18

Social Darwinism: a term coined in the late 19th century to describe the idea that humans, like animals and plants, compete in a struggle for existence in which natural selection results in “survival of the fittest.” Modeled upon capitalist competition.