Evolution Flashcards

What is Evolution?

Evolution is the process by which different kinds of living organism are believed to have developed from earlier forms during the history of the earth.

Evolution and evolutionary biology are largely attributed to Charles Darwin. His book, The Origin of the Species, was written in 1859 and refers to his observation of natural selection in finch populations on the Galapagos islands.

Evolution is often studied with genetics. To describe their relationship, the terms macroevolution and microevolution are commonly used. MIcroevolution is smaller scale evolution within a population, whilst macro evolution transcends the boundaries of a single species.

Regardless of the notion that evolution is merely a theory or an idea - it is a theory in the same sense that gravity is a theory. A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of facts. Indeed, the explanation of facts in the study of evolution is overwhelming -- to include observable current processes as well as transitional fossil records.

Evolution and Religion

Regardless of the fact that evolution as a scientific theory should stand or fall on its merits alone by those capable of understanding it, sadly this is not the case. No sooner had Darwin penned his works than the Church Of England began rebuking and denying what are, of course, scientific findings -- with no opposing scientific findings of their own.

Atheists and agnostics almost universally accept evolution, as do the majority of Buddhists, Jews, and Hindus. When it comes to Christians, however, only one half of those in the US identifying themselves as christians also claim to accept evolution. This is in stark contrast to 98% of scientists connected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Careers in Evolution

The study of evolution is usually a specialized portion of a more general science-based degree or major. Graduates passionate about this subject often consider the following roles:

Evolutionary Biologist

Ecologist

Urban Ecologist

Population Biologist

Research Biologist

Conservation Scientist  

Environmental Planner

Those with expertise of subjects including evolution can pursue careers in numerous sectors including education, government, conservation, natural resource management, biotechnology, zoos, natural history museums, and environmental consulting.

One job opportunity driven directly from an evolution-including science degree is to actually become an evolutionary biologist just like Darwin himself -- or today’s most famous evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins.

Here’s the rundown on evolution from the Crash course team if you just have a few minutes.

If you have a little more time then you can learn about a career in evolution by checking out this article in Science Mag. You may also learn more at the Society for the Study of Evolution or even take a fascinating trip to the Dawkins Foundation.  And, the aforementioned Richard Dawkins has near hero-like status in some groups, so don’t miss out on his discussions of evolution debates such as this one on Youtube.

Learning Evolution

You might study evolution as part of another degree in conjunction with Human Behavior or Ecology. Other subjects linked to Evolution include: Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, Marine Biology, Genetics, Zoology, Anthropology, Psychology, and Neuroscience.

Evolution students will need to memorize a vast amount of terminology as well as to understand very complex concepts.

Brainscape provides an ideal supplementary educational tool allowing you to commit essential information to memory and to prepare you to answer exam questions with ease and confidence.

Evolution in Brainscape

There are innumerable search results in Brainscape related to evolution, including Evolutionary Biology, Evolutionary Genetics and Human Evolution. They contain thousands of free flashcards prepared by top students and even experts. You’ll find everything from Phylogeny to Speciation!

If you're studying evolution in high school in preparation for the high stakes AP Biology exam, Brainscape has prepared premium content in partnership with Next Step Test preparation so that you’ll ace your AP Biology exam.

If you’d like to try out our software and make your own flashcards you can do that too; you'd become a valued contributor to our content marketplace (if you do not keep choose to your learning catalog private).

Learn faster with Brainscape

Through extensive development, we believe we've created among the the world's best bite-sized learning engine, which will allow you to learn twice as fast and to remember longer.

Brainscape has created Confidence-Based Repetition or (CBR) to address the problems that learners face. By understanding the brain and the way we tend to learn, we've built CBR to include three key learning methods: Active Recall, Metacognition, and Spaced Repetition. These principles can drive outstanding results.

Brainscape differs from many other computer-aided learning tools you might have tried in the past; there's no randomness to the flashcard ordering that you are shown. Brainscape's unique CBR system shows you the right flashcards at the most opportunely calculated moments to optimize your learning.  

It sounds complicated, but actually, it’s extremely simple. On completing your review of a note card, you’ll be asked to provide a rating from 1-5 that represents your understanding of the material. The algorithm uses this feedback to set the frequency of all the flashcards in the deck, effortlessly channeling content when you are most receptive. This metacognitive process strengthens the memory as you consider your own comprehension.

CBR also incorporates active recall. In Brainscape, you’ll notice that you have to work that little bit harder to recall answers rather than just visually recognizing a correct answer from multiple choice answers. When you do this, you’ll learn far more effectively and will retrieve the information more quickly.

Finally, CBR uses spaced recognition, a method of displaying small pieces of easily digested information at intervals which is a proven fast-track learning strategy.  

You can access Brainscape from your PC or iOS device and learn whenever you choose, so what are you waiting for?

How to get started

Ready to get started? The easiest way is to choose a class or deck of flashcards and try them out.

Take a quick look and you’ll see classes on topics such as Variation, Maladaptation, The Cambrian Explosion to Biodiversity. Just choose those that are suitable for your learning level and dig in.

All the classes include cards that are free-to-use. If you’d like to contribute, then you are more than welcome to join the Brainscape community of valued creators as well. Authoring your own flashcards allows you to create a personalized learning resource and it strengthens your memory trace.

If you want to try that, set up an account and click on “make flashcards” at the top of the page.

Happy learning from the Brainscape team and all the best in your Evolution studies and career.