Ch.3 Flashcards
Evolution theory and the material evidence for evolution. 
Set of testable hypothesis that assert that living organisms can change over time and give rise to new kinds of organisms, with the result that all organisms ultimately share a common ancestry.
Material evidence of change over time and material evidence of change across space.
Geological research led the discovery of the fossil record— remains of life forms that have been preserved in the earth for a long time. When scientists compared these fossils with each other and with living organisms, they knew notes that living organisms were quite different from the fossilized organisms. This was material evidence of change over time or evolution. 
Equally important material evidence for the development of revolutionary theory came from the study of living organisms. 
Essentialism
Within an essentialist view, how were species seen?
Each natural kind of living thing is characterized by and unchanging, perfect core of features that separated from all other natural things. Based on ideas derived from plato.
Example: A panda has panadaness and is not a bear. 
According to Plato, all living things that share the same essence belong to the same “natural kind” and there are many natural kinds in the world, each of which is the result of the imperfect incarnation in the physical world of one or another eternal form or Ideal. (“Cowness, humanness, ratness, etc). 
How were various organisms organized within the great chain of being?
A comprehensive framework used in the middle ages based on Aristotelian principles that linked all living things in elaborate chain. It was based on three principles:
- continuity: attributes of one kind of organism always overlap to some extent with the attributes of organisms closest to it in the classification.
- Plentitude: a world of organisms created by a benevolent God can have no gaps and must include All logically conceivable organisms.
- Unilinear gradation: all organisms can be arranged in a single hierarchy based on various degrees to which they depart from Devine perfection.
This lead to Influencing even Carolus Linnaeus Come on who is the father of modern biological taxonomy or classification. 
What is the basic idea behind catastrophism? 
The notion that natural disasters, such as floods, are responsible for the extinction of species, which or than replaced by new species. Introduced by the French scientist George’s Cuvier
What did the position of the uniformitarianism stress?
They stress natures overall harmonious integration as evidence forgot to handiwork. God might allow the world to change, they admit, but a benevolent gods blueprints for creation could not include sharp breaks between different forms of life and the abrupt disappearance of a species through extinction. Gods creation was the “incarnation of rationality”— that is, that God’s creation unfolded in accordance with God’s laws, without requiring subsequent divine intervention or a fixed historical trajectory. 
uniformitarianism: the belief that natural processes such as erosion or volcano isn’t that affects the earth surface today we’re at work in the past. Thus, we can use our understanding of current processes to reconstruct the history of the earth. Popularized by British geologist Charles Lyell. 
What is the underlying idea behind Lamarks transformational evolution?
Assuming essentialist species and a uniformly changing environment, proponents argued that all members of a species transform themselves in identical ways in order to adapt to commonly experience changes in the environment. To explain why, they invoked (1) the law of use and disuse and (2) the inHeritance of acquired characteristics. 
Lamarck Suggested, because all organisms have two attributes: one debility to change physically in response to environmental demands and to the capacity to activate disability whenever environmental change makes the organism previously responsible obsolete. 
What two laws did Lamarck propose to explain how transformations occurred?
- An organ is strengthened by use and weakened but disuse an early statement of use it or lose it. If environmental changes cause members of a species to rely more heavily on some organs than others, the former will be enhanced and the latter reduced. This was known as the law of use and disuse. Further argued that this first law had evolutionary consequences because the physical result of use or disuse could be passed from one generation to the next, which resulted in his second law: inheritance of acquired characteristics.
What was controversial about Darwins theory of common ancestry?
That the relationship between similar but distinct species in the world could be explained if all the similar species were related to one another biologically— that is, if they were considered daughter (or sibling) species of some other parental species.
Darwin and Wallace concluded that similar species must send from a common ancestor, meaning that any species might split into a number of new species given enough time. This is known as descent with modification.
But how much time? During the 1650s many people believed in God and an archBishop of Ireland, used information from the Bible to calculate that God had created earth on October 23 4004BCE, A data that was widely accepted. Many geologist claimed that the earth was more than 6000 years old indeed, it is about 4.5 billion years old. If the geologists were right, there has been ample time for what Darwin called descent with modification to have produced the species diversity we find in the world today. 
Some of the two step process of natural selection
A two-step common mechanistic explanation of how descent with modification takes place:
1) Every generation, variant individuals are generated within a species because of genetic mutation.
2. Those variant individuals best suited to the current environment survive and produce more offspring then other variants do.
According to Darwin theory of evolution by natural selection, what is the central condition of life?
[Important thing about individual members of a species is not what they have in common but how they are different]
Variation is the central condition for life. It is called a variational evolution, depends on “population thinking”— that is, seeing the populations that make up a species as composed of biological individuals whose differences from one another are genuine and important. 
Identify Darwins three principles to explain how biological evolution occurs.
- The principal of variation. No two individuals in a species are identical in all respects; they vary in such features as size, color, and so on.
2.The principle of heredity. Offspring tend to resemble their parents.
3.The principle of natural selection. Different variations leave different numbers up offspring.
The driving force was the struggle for existence. “Survival of the fittest”
Some of the theory of Pangenesis 
A theory of heredity suggesting that an organisms physical traits are passed on from one generation to the next in the form of multiple distinct particles given off by all parts of the organism, different proportions which get passed on to offspring be a sperm or egg.
Briefly describe Mendelian inheritance.
(I.e., What was Mendels great contribution?)
The view that heredity is based on non-blending, single-particle genetic inheritance.
Principle of segregation: principle of Mendelian inheritance in which an individual gets one particle (gene) for each trait (i.e., one half of the required pair) from each parent.
Principle of independent assortment: principle of Mendelian inheritance in which each pair of particles (genes) separate independently of every other pair when germ cells (egg and sperm) are formed.
What is meant by dominant and recessive traits?
Traits that are expressed are called dominant.
Traits that are not expressed are recessive.
Sometimes both traits can be expressed and this is called codominant. 
Briefly describe Homozygous and heterozygous
Describes a fertilized egg that receives the same particle (or allele) from each parent for a particular trait.
Describes a fertilized egg that receives a different particle (or allele) from each parent for the same trait. 
Alleles- All the different forms that a particular gene might take. 
