Chapter 2: From Natural Philosophy to Darwin

Question 1

taxon

Answer 1

a group of organisms that a taxonomist judges to be a taxonomic unit, such as a species or order

Question 2

taxonomy

Answer 2

the science of describing, naming, and classifying species of living or fossil organisms

Question 3

paleontology

Answer 3

the study of prehistoric life

Question 4

extinction

Answer 4

is the permanent loss of a population or species, arising with the death or failure to breed of the last individual

Question 5

uniformitarianism

Answer 5

the idea that the natural laws observable around us now are also responsible for events in the past. One part of this view, for example, was the idea that the Earth had been shaped by the cumulative action of gradual processes like sediment deposition and erosion; basically that small changes accumulate over time

Question 6

homologous

Answer 6

traits are similar because they are inherited from a common ancestor

Question 7

analagous

Answer 7

traits are similar because they have converged on a shared form. They are not derived from a common ancestor

Question 8

natural selection

Answer 8

is a mechanism that can lead to evolution, whereby differential reproduction of individuals causes some genetic types to replace (outcompete) others

Question 9

adaptations

Answer 9

inherited aspects of an individual that allow it to outcompete other members of a population that lack the trait (or that have a slightly different version of that trait). Adaptations are traits that have evolved through the mechanism of natural selection

Question 10

sexual selection

Answer 10

arises when individuals of one sex (usually males) compete with each other over access to individuals of the other sex. It can lead to the evolution of traits like showy ornaments or weapons that improve an individual’s chances of mating

Question 11

methodological naturalism

Answer 11

the Greeks’ rational approach to the natural world which was the correct methodology but wrong nonetheless (ex: Anaximander proposed the Earth rotated on concentric wheels)

Question 12

catastrophism

Answer 12

wrong idea that current geological formations had resulted from catastrophic events (ie: biblical flood) and things like that simply don’t happen today

Question 13

genetic drift

Answer 13

evolution arising from random changes in genetic composition of a population from one generation to the next; change in frequency of traits due to chance events

Question 14

Modern Synthesis

Answer 14

20th century union of ideas in paleontology, biology, genetics, and geology where everyone agreed that evolution is a thing and it takes a long time