L02 Darwin

Question 1

How long was the change over (from not believing in evolution to believing)

Answer 1

10-20 years

Question 2

What did Darwin kill in biology

Answer 2

• essentialism

- teleological explanation

Question 3

what was Darwin’s reasonable mechanism for evolution?

Answer 3

natural selection

-unlike Lamarck and chambers who had a good reason to think evolution happened but didn’t have good mechanisms

Question 4

How did Darwin explain design and purpose of organisms

Answer 4

• in a natural way
• movement of function and purpose
• banished teleological explanation

Question 5

What did his father send him to school for?

Answer 5

• University of Edinburgh to study medicine
• he was horrified by surgery and lectures
• liked chemistry

Question 6

What did Darwin then become interested in?

Answer 6

• natural history

- geology

Question 7

Tried to become part of the ____

Answer 7

clergy (cambridge)

-did not take this seriously but read Paley’s natural history. This started his interest in functional biology

Question 8

What was his role on the Beagle?

Answer 8

• said that he was the ships naturalist

- this was doubted, might just have been the captains social companion

Question 9

Why did the captain need a companion?

Answer 9

• captain would not interact with the crew much due to intellectual gaps
• high suicide rates

Question 10

Who did he marry and where did he move to

Answer 10

Emma Wedgewood, moved to Down House (London)

Question 11

What did he publish while in london?

Answer 11

1. The Voyage of the Beagle
2. 5 volume work on the vertebrates he collected
3. The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs

Question 12

What was evolution called when Darwin started thinking about it (secretly)

Answer 12

species transmutation

Question 13

Possible causes for Darwin’s Sickness

Answer 13

1. Chagas’ Disease: transmitted from a beetle that he recorded as biting him
2. Crohn’s Disease
3. Psychosomatic: caused by internal conflict/stress. Terrified of the response to his ideas.

Question 14

What kind of scientist did Darwin consider himself as

Answer 14

-Geologist, not Biologist

Question 15

What was his first scientific book on

Answer 15

-structure/distribution of coral reefs

Question 16

What did Darwin study for 8 years at Down House

Answer 16

barnacles

Question 17

Darwin’s main book on evolution

Answer 17

The origin of species

Question 18

how long before the publication of “the origin of species” did Darwin start thinking about evolution

Answer 18

23 years

• July 1873
• Darwin began a notebook on species transformation, the observations and material he had gathered on his voyage convinced him that evolution occurs

Question 19

How did he search for a cause of evolutionary change

Answer 19

-wondered what natural phenomenon could select for certain inherited traits the way artificial selection (plant/animal breeding by humans) could

Question 20

What did Darwin decide was the cause for evolutionary change

Answer 20

• adaptation to the environment

- called it ‘natural selection’ or ‘contrast artificial selection’

Question 21

Why did Darwin keep sketch and essay a secret?

Answer 21

• was too short wanted it to be longer
• wanted to become expert before publishing such a radical idea
• same year Chamber’s vestiges was published, didn’t want to be the centre of arguments

Question 22

Who encouraged Darwin to write 1000 page book “Natural Selection”

Answer 22

Hooker and Lyell
Hooker: convinced
Lyell: not convinced but thought that evolutionary ideas were important

Question 23

What did Alfred Russel Wallace do?

Answer 23

• wrote brief outline of evolution and sent it to Darwin for his opinion
• unaware that Darwin had been working on same issue
• Darwin realized he had been scooped

Question 24

What was Alfred Russel Wallace’s outline on

Answer 24

• a discontinuity of the flora and fauna past a specific area
• now understand that this is continental drift

Question 25

What 3 papers were read at a meeting after Darwin had realized he had been scooped

Answer 25

- 5 page summary of Darwin's ideas - Copy of Darwin's letter to Asa Gray from 1857 to show he had not stolen Wallace's ideas - Wallace's paper

Question 26

What did Darwin write when he abandoned "Natural Selection"

Answer 26

"The Origin of Species" | -shorter presentation, written when he was in bad health

Question 27

What was the "Origin of Species" mainly about

Answer 27

- artificial selection - natural selection - common descent explaining similarities in systematic groupings, embryological similarities, vestigial organs, geographic distribution of organisms and fossil sequences in the stratigraphical column

Question 28

What did Darwin propose as causes of evolutionary change

Answer 28

1. Natural selection - -> seen lots of different breeding - -> did not know anything about genetic variance so what caused variance was a mystery to him 2. Use and Disuse - -> accepted some of Lamarckian inheritance. Didn't think it was the main force but thought it was possible to lose traits based on disuse

Question 29

Types of variation

Answer 29

1. Sports: large and conspicuous barriers. - -> an animal that is different from another in its species 2. Individual Variation: refers to variation that is small and incremental (now referred to as continuous variation)

Question 30

Darwin's view on heredity

Answer 30

- thought there were hereditary particles in the body called gemmules - carried the experience of parents - his genetics were the weak part of the argument

Question 31

Two debates that arose because of Darwin

Answer 31

1. Whether Darwin was correct or not | 2. If he was correct, what the meaning of evolution might mean for society, morality, and philosophy

Question 32

Fleeming Jenkin

Answer 32

Said that Darwinian evolution is inconsistent with what is known about heredity and the nature of species -thought heredity couldn't vary past a limit of an average like the centre of a sphere (essentialism thinking)

Question 33

Fleeming Jenkins view of large genetic variants (sports)

Answer 33

- Blended inheritance, didn't think that selection could happen as there would be no organisms that resembled the parent as they would all move to uniformity. - Large genetics spots blended out

Question 34

Darwins responses to Fleeming Jenkin

Answer 34

-refuted analogy of spare as perhaps the sphere can move so maybe so that the variation was not outside the limit

Question 35

A.W Bennet

Answer 35

- Natural selection cannot fashion complicated adaptations requiring many steps - Depended on each variance having advantage over existing variance

Question 36

Darwin's Response to A.W Bennett

Answer 36

- wrote book on the butterflies in the amazon river - pierids butterflies living with toxic heliconid butterflies. Pierids mimicked the heliconid butterflies (over all variation)

Question 37

A.W Bennets response to the butterfly rebuttal

Answer 37

- how long would it take to go from one phenotype to the other - would each step confer with selective advantage to the mimic? Darwin couldn't rebuttal this but was later shown that these small events would be important

Question 38

Sir William Thomson (Lord Kelvin)

Answer 38

- Earth has not been habitable for long enough for Darwin evolution to have occurred to reach the variation that is currently seen - Sun doesn't have enough energy reserves to have existed for that long - estimated that gravitational collapsed (causing sun to burn) has been occurring for 20-40 million years

Question 39

Darwin rebuttle to Lord Kelvin

Answer 39

-maybe if the earth was more violent in its early life then evolution would have been accelerated

Question 40

What happened in 1900's

Answer 40

-Darwinism is dead. Darwinism refers to natural selection (not evolution, evolution was accepted)