Chapter 2: Science and the Development of Evolutionary Theory

Question 1

adaptation

Answer 1

a state of existence or a process by which an organism is or becomes better suited to its circumstances of life

Question 2

niches

Answer 2

the conditions of environments in which organisms live, including climate, space, predator-prey relationships, and mate availability

Question 3

morphology

Answer 3

study of the size, shape, and configuration of an organism and its various parts

Question 4

analogous

Answer 4

a similarity in structure or function resulting from independent adaption to comparable circumstances in life, rather than evolutionary descent

Question 5

pheromone

Answer 5

a chemical signal capable of causing a specific response in members of the same or closely related species

Question 6

epistemology

Answer 6

the study or theory of knowledge, including its production, validation, and application

Question 7

secular

Answer 7

separate and apart from religious tradition or edict; worldly

Question 8

contingency

Answer 8

being dependent on the occurrence or existence of a prior event or thing

Question 9

methodology

Answer 9

the study of the methods applied to research generally or within a particular discipline

Question 10

Darwinism

Answer 10

evolution resulting from natural selection acting on random variation in populations, through which more fit individuals are favoured in “the struggle for existence”; as conceived by Charles Darwin

Question 11

a priori

Answer 11

arguing from cause to effect; deduced from prior knowledge or presumption

Question 12

theory

Answer 12

explanatory statements or arguments related to particular sets of phenomena supported by observation or experiment

Question 13

phylogenetic

Answer 13

relating to evolutionary histories of ancestry and descent; also phylogeny

Question 14

allometry

Answer 14

refers to patterns of size and shape change among parts of organisms at different sizes, or among related organisms either living or extinct

Question 15

null hypothesis

Answer 15

in statistics, a proposition that there is no difference among samples, conditions, outcomes, etc., that can be disproved through experiment or observation

Question 16

data

Answer 16

observations, measurements, facts (known or assumed) that form the basis for a conclusion; singular datum

Question 17

sample

Answer 17

a subset of a whole that represents its qualities with regard to the characteristics under study; for example, if three-quarters of a population of university students have a piercing, approximately the same proportion in a sample selected from that population should have a piercing

Question 18

assumption

Answer 18

a condition or feature unverified or uncontrolled but taken to be as stated for the purpose of argument

Question 19

Law of Superposition

Answer 19

layers (“strata”; singular “stratum”) within a sedimentary geological deposit are laid down from oldest to most recent, permitting assignment of relative dates to items contained in the deposit

Question 20

seminal

Answer 20

relating to “seed”’ in this context, a seminal work is one that becomes a foundation for generations of subsequent ideas and developments

Question 21

paradigm

Answer 21

a conceptual framework within which bodies of theory are developed, directing the course of future investigation

Question 22

stasis

Answer 22

a state of equilibrium characterized by the absence of change

Question 23

paleontology

Answer 23

the study of fossilized life forms

Question 24

immutable

Answer 24

unchanging over time, or unchangeable; an idea traceable to the Greek philosopher Aristotle, stating that forms exist today as they were when created, have not changed in the past and cannot change in the future

Question 25

geocentrism

Answer 25

the concept that the earth is the centre of the known universe, around which all other heavenly bodies revolve; attributed to the Greek astronomer Ptolemy but known before his time

Question 26

essentialism

Answer 26

Plato’s idea that what exists in the world and is experienced by the human senses is an imperfect representation of an underlying, perfect, and immutable ideal, or essence, knowable only by the mind

Question 27

Great Chain of Being

Answer 27

Aristotle’s ordered, hierarchical, and static view of the world

Question 28

teleology

Answer 28

a perspective proposing that there are end points, or “final causes,” toward which natural phenomena are oriented and suggestive of a design, goal, or purpose in the world

Question 29

heliocentrism

Answer 29

the now well-established view that the planets in our solar system revolve about the sun; the Copernican model also incorporates the essential ideas of the daily rotation of the earth on a tilted axis

Question 30

taxonomy

Answer 30

the method by which organisms are classified and assigned to a group (a taxon; plural, taxa) based on shared biological, ecological, and behavioural relationships

Question 31

uniformitarianism

Answer 31

a philosophy in geology that argues that the natural processes affecting the earth and observable today have remained constant (uniform) through geologic time

Question 32

comparative method

Answer 32

understanding relationships among organisms by examining the similarities and differences present in various aspects of their biology

Question 33

principle correlation of parts

Answer 33

the idea that organisms are integrated wholes and that change in one part cannot occur without altering the whole (usually by rendering it dysfunctional)

Question 34

extinction

Answer 34

the complete disappearance of a particular species owing to factors that may be internal (related to the organism’s biology) or external (related to environmental change over which the organism has no influence)

Question 35

catastrophism

Answer 35

Cuvier’s notion that fossil forms are produced through series of cataclysmic events and that changes from one kind to the next in succession result from new forms arriving from areas not affected by the event

Question 36

classification

Answer 36

the act of arranging or sorting objects according to features held in common; assigning such objects to a proper class

Question 37

Natural Theology

Answer 37

a philosophy of theology founded on principles of observation of the world in a context of Creation, rather than on arguments from divine revelation

Question 38

binomial nomenclature

Answer 38

a “two-name” system developed by Linnaeus to identify all plants and animals according to genus and species

Question 39

pangenesis

Answer 39

a discredited theory of heredity arguing that particles in body cels and organs can be influenced by their environment, and once transferred to the sex cells pass on these influences to the next generation

Question 40

zoogeography

Answer 40

the study of the geographic distribution of animals and the ecological communities to which they belong

Question 41

microevolution

Answer 41

small-scale evolutionary events occurring within a population over the span of a few generations, affecting the frequency of specific characters and not involving species formation

Question 42

macroevolution

Answer 42

large-scale evolutionary events, typically viewed over geological time, leading to speciation and the formation of higher taxonomic categories

Question 43

biological species concept

Answer 43

species defined on the basis of reproductive inclusion within its membership and reproductive isolation from other species

Question 44

Law of Use and Disuse

Answer 44

Lamarck’s first law, which suggests that the use or disuse of parts, reflecting an organism’s needs and circumstances, will cause that part to develop or reduce accordingly

Question 45

Law of Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics

Answer 45

Lamarck’s second law stipulates that those changes resulting from use and disuse will, if occurring in both parents, be transmitted to offspring

Question 46

natural selection

Answer 46

the nonrandom preservation or elimination of variants through competition within and between species promoting differential reproductive success

Question 47

incipient species

Answer 47

related populations that, although capable of successful reproduction, are prevented from doing so by some barrier and that as a result may increasingly diverge to the point of becoming separate species

Question 48

reproductive fitness

Answer 48

a measure of the success of an individual in the production of offspring across generations; your children, and their children, and so on all constitute your reproductive fitness