Ch. 2 Flashcards
The most critical mechanism of evolutionary change, first described by Charles Darwin; the term refers to genetic change or changes in the frequencies of certain traits in populations due to differential reproductive success between individuals.
Natural Selection
The notion that species, once created, can never change is diametrically opposed to theories of biological evolution.
Fixity of Species
A transition from one conceptual framework or prevailing and widely accepted viewpoint to another. The acceptance of the discovery that the sun is the center of our solar system is an example of a ________ _____.
paradigm shift
Pertaining to groups of organisms that, mainly because of genetic differences, are prevented from mating and producing offspring with members of other such groups. For example, dogs cannot mate and produce offspring with cats.
Reproductively isolated
In taxonomy, the convention established by Carolus Linnaeus whereby genus and species names are used to refer to living things. For example, Homo sapiens refers to human beings.
Binomial nomenclature (bino- mial, meaning “two names”)
The branch of science concerned with the rules of classifying organisms on the basis of evolutionary relationships.
Taxonomy
The view that the earth’s geological landscape is the result of violent cataclysmic events. Cuvier promoted this view, especially in opposition to Lamarck.
Catastrophism
The theory that the earth’s features are the result of long term processes that continue to operate in the present just as they did in the past. Elaborated on by Lyell, this theory opposed catastrophism and greatly contributed to the concept of immense geological time.
Uniformitarianism
Pertaining to natural selection, a measure of the relative reproductive success of individuals. _______ can be measured by an individual’s genetic contribution to the next generation compared with that of other individuals. The terms genetic _______, reproductive _______, and differential net reproductive success are also used.
Fitness
The number of offspring an individual produces and rears to reproductive age, or an individual’s genetic contribution to the next generation.
Reproductive success
Forces in the environment that influence reproductive success in individuals.
Selective pressures
The ability to conceive and produce healthy offspring.
Fertility
The entire genetic makeup of an individual or species.
Genome
A biological continuum. When expressions of a phenomenon continuously grade into one another so that there are no discrete categories, they exist on a continuum. Color is one such phenomenon, and life- forms are another.
Biological continuity
Adherents to a movement in American Protestantism that began in the early twentieth century. This group holds that the teaching of the Bible are infallible and should be taken literally.
Christian Fundamentalists
