Biology 20 - Chapter 4: Theorys

Question 1

Plato and Aristotle

Answer 1

• Everything on earth was made to be perfect
• Variation was the result of copies being unperfect

Question 2

Buffon

Answer 2

• Everyone thought that life was interchangeable
• Recognized that humans and apes are kinda alike
• Suggested we all have the same ancestor
• Suggested that the earth was way older than 6000 years

Question 3

Cuvier

Answer 3

• Saw that fossils ils are in layered rocks
• Saw that the deeper that fossil, the more different they are to present humans
• As he explored, he saw species disappear over time
• Thought that there were many catastrophic events throughout life
• Catastrophism

Question 4

Lyell

Answer 4

I thought the early was way more slow and continuous instead of catastrophic
- Early could be older than 6000 years
- Realized that slow, subtle changes over a long period could result in substantial changes
- Uniformitarianism

Question 5

Lamarack

Answer 5

• Observed alive animals with fossils, saw something called “line of descent”
• Thought that species change over time until they become perfect
• Acquired characteristics can be given off to babies
• Giraffe example
• Inheritance of acquired characteristics

Question 6

Darwin

Answer 6

• Sailed ships
• Observed biology and made samples to send back to England
• Didnt understand the significance of his studies

Question 7

Darwin and Wallace

Answer 7

• Reached similar conclusions about natural selection being the mechanism for species change over time
• Their findings were presented together by Charles Lyell

Question 8

Malthus

Answer 8

• Saw that populations produce far more offspring than their environments can support, many of the offspring don’t survive because of starvation or disease.
• Darwin and Wallace said that only the organisms with traits that helped them to survive were likely to pass on those traits to their offspring, so competition for limited resources would select individuals with favorable traits. Over time, these traits would become more common in the population

Question 9

Darwins book “On the Origin of Species”

Answer 9

1. Present forms of life have arisen by descent and modification from an ancestral species
2. The mechanism for modification is natural selection working for long periods.
   - Also said that all life on earth had descended from some unknown organism and that as descendants of that organism spread out into different habitats over time, they developed adaptations that helped them to better survive in their local environments