Darwin Flashcards
What were Darwin’s 4 biggest achievements?
- a convincing case for evolutionary change that was widely accepted by biologists for the first time
- completely debunked essentialism in biology
- presented a reasonable mechanism for evolution = natural selection
- debunked teleological explanation in biology = a reasonable natural explanation of design and function in organisms
Describe Darwin’s life before the Origin of Species
he was rich
studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh (not interested, horrified by surgery)
became interested in natural history and geology - met Robert Grant (zoologist and Lamarckian) and Robert Jameson (naturalist)
didn’t want to disappoint father so he decided to join the clergy in Cambridge
offered a position to sail internationally around the world on the Beagle as ‘the ship’s naturalist’ but historians think he was just the social companion of the captain
What was the name of the ship Darwin sailed on? WHat was Darwin’s role? Where did they survey?
The Beagle
he called himself the ‘ship’s naturalist,’ for official reasons but he was really just the captain’s social companion
sailed to survey South America
Was Darwin a good sailor?
no he was often sea sick, which prevented him to pursue naturalism as a hobby
When he returned to England, who did Darwin marry and where di dthey move?
Emma Wedgewood
moved to the Down House in London
While in London, he published what?
a popular account of his trip on the Beagle
a 5 volume work on vertebrates he collected (he was an editor)
a book on the structure and distribution of coral reefs
What did Darwin begin, in secrecy, thinking about after his trip and after working with Richard Owen on the specimen he collected?
evolution, which was then called species transmutation
After the Beagle trip, what condition did Darwin fall into and spend the rest of his life struggling with?
deteriorated state including stomach issues like vomiting, and trembling, boils, palpitations and anxiety in stressful times
never diagnosed, but historians think it could have been Chagas’ disease or Chrohn’s disease
What is Chagas’ disease? why do people think Darwin had it?
spread via a protozoan that is transmitted by a beetle which Darwin was known to have been bitten by
Why was Darwin at the Down House for so long?
his poor health
While he was at Down House, what 8 subjects did Darwin mainly study?
- barnacles (for 8 years)
- evolution (and human evolution)
- earth worms
- animal behaviour and emotional expression
- insectivorous plants
- power of movement in plants
- plant reproduction
- domesticated plants and animals and their variation
Darwin’s work on evolution and the Origin of Species was a result of what?
his own primary observations and observations by others (Richard Owen namely) and not of the ideas of prior evolutionary thinkers (he didn’t agree with a lot of their ideas)
How many years had Darwin spent on his evolutionary ideas which led to the Origin of Species?
23 years
he began a notebook on species transmutation based on his observations and materials gathered from his Beagle voyage in 1837
What helped Darwin realize that evolution is a fact and is occurring?
Working with specimen with Owen was influential but also his notes about the migration of the finches to Galapagos Islands
What construct/process did he use as a blueprint kind of for determining the mechanism/cause of evolutionary change?
artificial selection
Why did Darwin name his mechanism ‘natural selection’?
as a direct comparison to artificial selection - suggests a natural selective pressure on adaptation
What was ‘The Sketch’ (1842)?
Darwin’s manuscript of evolutionary ideas that was never published in his lifetime
consisted of arguments for:
- reality of evolution
- natural selection is the main driver and mechanism of evolution
What was ‘The Essay’ (1844)?
Darwin’s expanded version of the sketch, which was also not published until after he died
he told his wife and Hooker about it and to publish it when he died
Why did Darwin keep his 1844 essay a secret?
he didn’t care for fame during his lifetime
he knew it was well-argued and would have to be accepted
he was friends with Richard Owen, who maybe would have seen it as a slight as they worked directly together and he never discussed his opposing views to Owen
maybe he needed to first study barnacles for 8 years before he could be taken seriously (publish a monogram)
Why did Darwin cram to publish his book in the last few years of his life?
he was warned by Lyell and Hooker that someone else was working along the same ideas
What was the original title for the Origin of Species?
he intended to call it Natural Selection
Who was the other person who was working along the same lines as Darwin?
Alfred Russel Wallace
Who was Alfred Russel Wallace?
an English naturalist living in Indonesia who wrote a brief outline of evolution by natural selection and sent it to Darwin for his feedback, unaware that Darwin also was working on this
this made Darwin panic
What did Darwin do in response to Wallace’s letter?
since Wallace was in Indonesia, and had fallen ill with malaria
Darwin sent three papers to be read in a meeting at the Linnaean Society in 1858:
- 5 page summary of Darwin’s ideas, written by Darwin for this
- a copy of Darwin’s letter to Asa Grey in 1857 to show he had not stolen Wallace’s ideas
- Wallace’s paper he had sent to Darwin ‘On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type’
In what period of time did Darwin write the Origin of Species?
only in 15 months! it was a shorter version of Natural Selection beause he was not in good health
What is included in the Origin of Species?
most of it covers artificial and natural selection
the rest covers how common descent explains morphological similarities in systematic groupings, embryological similarities, and vestigial organs, geographical distribution, and fossil sequences in the strata
When was the Origin of Species published?
1859
What were Darwin’s 2 proposed causes of evolutionary change? What is similar to Lamarck?
- natural selection: variance affects adaptation and some adaptations improve fitness which allow for those genes to be passed on
- use and disuse (somewhat Lamarckian, but improved): to some extent, experience can be encoded into your genes and passed on to offspring (ex. cave fish live in perpetual darkness and have no use for eyes, so they have lost their eyes) - debunked now
Why was Darwin thought to be able to come up with these ideas just from one voyage and personal observation having only had medical university training?
highly synthetic mind which could see connections to make a consistent/cohesive thought
photographic memory
Why wasn’t Darwin knighted?
timing - he was on the list of honourees, but he published his book with controversial topics right before and was removed
What were Darwin’s views on heredity?
- there are 2 types of variation: sport (phenotype) and individual (continuous variation)
- hereditary factors were discrete - experiences were encoded somehow through blood into the sex genes (gemmules) and passed on to offpsring
Who influenced Darwin’s views on heredity?
Hippocrates and his idea of pangenesis (acquired inheritance - encoding experience in sex genes)
How was Darwin’s Origin of Species and evolutionary theory received?
within a decade his ideas were widely accepted in biology and with the general public
some opposition from religious figures, but not all
scientific critiques of natural selection
What debates were caused from Origin of Species?
whether Darwin was correct or not
if he was correct, what the meaning of evolution is for society, morality and philosophy
What was the major argument against natural selection from scientists?
Fleeming Jenkin:
argued that Darwinian evolution was not consistent with heredity and the nature of species
small variants have fixed limitations on individual variation - includes essentialism
large genetic variants (sports) will be blended out quickly by reproduction because of intermediate offspring
How did Darwin defend himself to Jenkin?
species variation is not set by some fixed limit, but only contingent on the evolutionary history
he accepted that there was blending and offspring were mixes of parents, but there was a high rate of mutation (introduction rate)
WHat was AW Bennett’s ideas on evolution? What was his source and examples?
based on Bates’ ideas, natural selection doesn’t explain complicated adaptations that would require many steps, as seen in cases of Batesian mimicry, because each step would have to be both small but adaptive
ex. Pierid and Heliconid butterflies - Pierid mimicking the toxic Heliconid only when both are present; Darwin thought this was natural selection, but it is just Batesian mimicry
What did Sir William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) think about natural selection and Darwinian evolution?
he didn’t think that Earth had been habitable for long enough to support Darwinian evolution - the sun didn’t have enough energy reserves to have been around for that long
What happened to Darwinism (natural selection) by 1900? why?
due to all the critiques and Darwin’s death, the idea of natural selection was ‘dead’
What replaced natural selection in 1900s?
theistic evolution (Thomson) very religious but it did embrace evolution but thought the driver was god, not natural selection
What was Darwin’s conclusion in the Galapagos chapter?
- originally thought the group of islands would be a ‘satellite’ but instead they are a ‘group of satellites’
- the variation within species across the islands resulted from geographic isolation - diverged from their original parent species and adapted to their specific island’s conditions
What other island group did Darwin refer to in the Galapagos chapter?
The Falkland Islands provide more evidence found in the Galapagos
Who famously complained about Social Darwinism and Darwinism to Gandhi in the late 1900s? What were the complaints?
Leo Tolstoy wrote letters to Gandhi critiquing and expressing his disdain for Darwinism, evolution and the ‘struggle for existence’ because he had experienced people taking it so literally as a justification for violence and pride in Russia
How did the author of ‘Kroptokin was No Crackpot’ defend Darwin against unfair claims against Darwinism?
- nature provides no basis for our moral values - evolution might help us understand why we have moral feelings but it is not an unconscious driver of our actions - ie., we still have control over our actions
- Darwin’s ‘struggle for existence’ is a metaphor, not a literal translation for winners and losers
but the author does allow Tolstoy the grace that his complaints were not unfounded - Darwin’s examples did allude to ‘bloody battle’
What did Darwin’s disciple, Huxley, add to the idea of the struggle for existence and Darwinism?
he doubled down on the idea that ‘nature is nasty and no guide to morality except, perhaps, as an indicator of what to avoid in human society’
What view did J. Gould, the author of ‘Kroptokin was No Crackpot’ take on all this?
he aligned with Darwin’s metaphorical view of struggle and that nature can be nasty and nice, ‘nature favours none and offers no guidelines’
Who was Petr Kropotkin? What view did he take on Darwinism?
he was a Russian revolution ‘gentle anarchist’ (libertarian) (notably he was bearded which apparently signified violence?) - communion rather than combat = success
had communist ideas
wrote “Mutual Aid” (1902) as a direct response (collection of articles) to Huxley’s struggle for existence essay
What was J. Gould’s conclusion about Kroptokin and why he wasn’t a crackpot? What did he highlight as his 2 main faults?
he agreed with Kroptokin that:
- struggle occurs in many forms, some of which MAY lead to cooperation of members of a species to benefit the individual
- he was no more extreme with his views of socialism and cooperation than western Europeans were with social Darwinism and competition
faults:
- Kroptokin didn’t recognize that natural selection is directed at advantages to individuals, regardless of their type of struggle - he often emphasized cooperation to benefit a GROUP
- Kroptokin’s argument relies on nature and society to be kind, mutual, synergistic, and living in harmony - this is not a strong argument - these properties do not exist in nature
Where did J. Gould think the answers to moral dilemmas lay?
not in nature, but within us and the ‘kingdom of God’
