Chapter 2

Question 1

natural selection

Answer 1

a change in the frequencies of certain traits in populations due to differential reproductive success between individuals; some individuals have more offspring, and pass on their traits at a higher rate

Question 2

fixity of species

Answer 2

the idea that all species were created by God in the six days of creation and the have not changed since

Question 3

reproductively isolated

Answer 3

groups of organisms that are presented from mating and producing offspring with members of other groups

Question 4

binomial nomenclature

Answer 4

genus and species names are used to refer to species

Question 5

taxonomy

Answer 5

branch of science concerned with the roles of classifying organisms on the basis of evolutionary relationships

Question 6

catastrophism

Answer 6

the view that the earths geological landscape is the result of violent cataclysmic events

Question 7

uniformitarianism

Answer 7

geological processes in action today were also in action in the past and those processes had the same effects in the past as they do today

Question 8

fitness

Answer 8

a measure of the relative reproductive success of individual

Question 9

reproductive success

Answer 9

number of offspring an individual produces ad raised to reproductive age

Question 10

selective pressures

Answer 10

forces in the environment that influences reproductive success in individuals

Question 11

fertility

Answer 11

the ability to conceive and produce healthy offspring

Question 12

genome

Answer 12

the entire genetic makeup of an individual or species

Question 13

biological continuity

Answer 13

when expressions of a phenomenon continuously grade into one another so hat there are no discrete categories

Question 14

christian fundamentalists

Answer 14

this group holds that the teachings of the Bible are infallible and that the scriptures are to be taken literally

Question 15

Bishop Usher

Answer 15

calculations based on Biblical and historical data

Question 16

species

Answer 16

groups of living things that are reproductively isolated

Question 17

carolus linnaeus

Answer 17

System Nature

Question 18

George-Louis Ledere, Comte de Buffon

Answer 18

different environments have species with different traits, species change over time in response to aspects of the environment

Question 19

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck

Answer 19

species evolve in response to how they interact with the environment

Question 20

use/disuse theory

Answer 20

body parts that are used will strengthen and those not used will weaken and go away over time.

Question 21

inheritance of acquired characteristics

Answer 21

traits gained by an animal in its lifetime can be passed on to its offspring

Question 22

Georges Cuvier

Answer 22

animal species can be extinct and new pieces can appear

Question 23

Charles Lyell

Answer 23

“father of modern geology”, wrote principles of geology

Question 24

Thomas Malthus

Answer 24

an essay on the principle of population, why populations grow and decline

Question 25

carrying capacity

Answer 25

the population that a given environment can support

Question 26

Charles Darwin

Answer 26

combines all the earlier scholar’s idea with his own to create a viable explanation for how/why things evolve