Lec 14: Darwin's Big Idea

Question 1

Who came up with ‘argument from design’?

Answer 1

William Paley

Question 2

What did William Paley come up with?

Answer 2

He said that a mechanical object must be created by a creator.

His argument was by an analogy, as someone made a watch, someone must have also made plants as it has mechanical functions to it.

Question 3

Who was the first to come up with the term ‘evolution’? And what was his ideas?

Answer 3

-Jean Baptiste de Lamarck

He had the ideas that organisms changed

He was the first to provide a causal mechanism. “The inheritance acquired characters”

Question 4

What was the ‘Inheritance of ACQUIRED CHARACTERS”?

Answer 4

The example given by Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck was a giraffe’s neck.

He had the idea that as the giraffe stretched for food, over its lifetime, the neck became longer, when the same giraffe had offspring, this long neck trait was then passed onto him.

Question 5

What were Lamarck’s ideas?

Answer 5

1) He had the idea that humans evolved a long time ago and evolved acquired traits that made them complex.

2) He thought that less complex organisms like bacteria evolved more recently

3) He did not have the idea that all organisms were related

4) Have constantly evolving generations of organisms that are moving along the line to some higher state.

Question 6

What were on the X, Y axis on Lamarck’s graph?

Answer 6

X: Time progressing (Increasing from left to right)

Y: Scale of organization

The graph increases linearly, the most recent dot evolved the least, while the dot in the beginning must have evolved the most (i.e complex)

Question 7

Who came up with the first comprehensive theory of evolution?

Answer 7

Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace

Question 8

What were the ideas by Darwin and Wallace?

Answer 8

-Provides us with first comprehensive theory of evolution

-said chief mechanism for evolution was Natural Selection

-All organisms had a common ancestor

-We changed over time.

Question 9

Who wrote “Origin of Species”?

Answer 9

Charles Darwin

Question 10

What were the two ideas in the ‘Origins of Species’?

Answer 10

1. All organisms descended with a modification from an ancestor
2. The process leading to adaptation is natural selection operating on variation among individuals.

Question 11

Which botanist influenced Darwin?

Answer 11

John S. Henslow

Question 12

What was Charles Lyell’s ideas?

Answer 12

In his book ‘The principle’s of Geography’, he argues about a dynamic change rather than a static one. he proposed that the landscape rather changed gradually rather than via a catastrophic event.

Question 13

What made Darwin think that all species have evolved from a more recent ancestor?

Answer 13

He looked at the MOCKINGBIRDS in the Galapagos Islands, They all looked similar but somewhat different from each other. But all the other species looked some what similar to species to the mainland.

This made him doubt about fixity of species

Question 14

Where did Darwin get the idea about survival of the fittest?

Answer 14

From Malthus’s book.

Question 15

What year did Darwin write the book?

Answer 15

1844: He wrote an essay about Natural Selection but did not publish it

1856: Began working on the book

June 1858: Received a book by Alfred Russel Wallace, which outlined evolution by Natural Selection

July 1858: Published combined essays about Natural Selection

1859: Published origin of Species by Natural Selection

Question 16

What were Darwin’s and Wallace’s emphasing in Mechanisms of Natural Selection?

Answer 16

1. Variation: Individual Variation in a population
2. Heredity: Progeny resemble their parents more than unrelated individuals
3. Selection: Some forms are more successful than others in a given environment.

Question 17

Who said how inheritance occured, and what were his ideas?

Answer 17

August Weisman

August Weisman Germplasm theory said:

1) inheritance occurred as germ cells were passed on. and somatic cells did not function in hereditary.

2) Genetic information does not pass from soma to gametes, which are then passes onto next gen

3) In modern terms: Genetic information only flows in one direction only from DNA protein

Question 18

What was difference between Darwin and Lamarck’s ideas?

Answer 18

1. Darwin said Population evolved, not individuals

Question 19

What are the key idea’s by Darwin?

Answer 19

1.Evolution occurs primarily at the population level

2. Variation is not determined by environment/ is not directed (Individuals don’t induce adaptive variation when needed.)
3. Most fit is dependent on the environment
4. Survival of the fitter: Evolution works with available variable will not achieve perfection

Question 20

What were the implications about Darwin’s theory of Evolution?

Answer 20

1. Concept of changing world: Replaced a view of static world
2. A phenomenon with no purpose: Natural selection revealed how complex adaptations with important ‘functions’ can appear through a blind, unplanned process.

Question 21

What is important for scientific theories?

Answer 21

1. Supported by a diverse source of empirical evidence
2. Principles are referred from observation and experimentation
3. Have testable and falsifiable hypothesis