Development of Darwin’s Ideas Flashcards
Creationism
Based in biblical teaching as well as the creation event in Genesis, there were multiple creation events
Lamark’s Theory of Evolution
May be sparked by the French Revolution - doubt in the gov/religion
- Change in evo give change in use of an organ so a characteristic is obtained => change inherited
accepts idea of inherited characteristic
What makes Lamark different from previous theories?
- predicts gradual change that happens
- happens over a long period of time
- caused by environment
What makes Lamark similar to previous theories?
- Still hierarchal with organisms desiring improvement (from great change of being)
- More complex is seen as better
What was wrong about Lamark’s theory?
- Change is deliberate instead of chance
- Individuals evolve rather than populations
- Genes aren’t influenced by change in phenotype of parents
Darwin’s Voyage on the Beagle
Was a natural theologist from being a clergyman
=> on Beagle voyage still agreed with religious dogma
=> 1831-1836: would collect from visits + send back to london and was talked about in scientific world
=>In galapagos : saw diff beaks on diff islands due to diff food available but didn't intially tie it to evo.
What did Darwin learn?
- Succession of types - decent with modification
- Representative types - variation and geographical isolation
- Huge amount of continuous variations - are species fixed?
- Ocean islands - migrations and common descent
What did Darwin do with his findings after his voyage?
- Compared things across species (thought same blueprint could be from a deity)
- Artificial selection was used to increase yield for growing industrial population
Summary of Malthus : An Essay on the Principle of Population
M implicated overpopulation + it rising + irresponsible lower class for the Irish potato famine
=> thought regulation of lower-class family size (let poor ppl die) so they don’t produce more children than they can support
Darwin’s thoughts on Malthus + Development of the theory
Darwin was funding research into potato blight
- Disagreed with Malthus
- formed theory of evolution around this time (1842)
- Wrote draft and kept it until 1849
Summary of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution
- Gradual evolution from a common ancestor
- No hierarchy or upward movement
- No requirement for increase in complexity
- Unique in coming up with the tree model
Role of Wallace in spreading Darwin’s Ideas
- Came to similar conclusions independently when collecting things in Malaysia
- Wrote a joint paper with Darwin + a book on Darwinism
=> However, didn’t accept humans as a product of Natural Selection - thought to be part of the spiritual world and subject to diff. rules
What Darwin thought of human evolution
‘Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history’
=> man is descended from a lowly form that he thought would be ‘distasteful to many’
- Later wrote about human evolution
