Evolution

Question 1

What is Antiquity

Answer 1

The most common idea was that the earth was immutable (meaning it could and did not change)

Question 2

Early Church?

Answer 2

Early church fathers - interpreted story of genesis allegory (story not history)

Question 3

Islamic Philosophy?

Answer 3

Explores how organisms interact with each other in an environment - relationships between organisms

Question 4

Ibn Khaldun?

Answer 4

• “Humans developed from the world of monkeys”
• Theorized a process that allowed species to “become more numerous”

Question 5

Comte Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon

Answer 5

• Noted that some parts serve no purpose - suggests that species had been created in a “perfect” form” but had changed or derived from it over time.
• Compared parts and anatomy of animals
• Degraded from “perfect form”

Question 6

Linnaeus and Erasmus Darwin

Answer 6

• Both suggested that life had changed over time.
• Fossil discovery provided idea that some species had gone extinct
• Erasmus suggested life might have evolved from a single original source (common ancestor)
• Neither could provide a mechanism by how life had changed and evolved. - ideas remained speculative - no mechanism

Question 7

Jean-Baptiste LaMarck

Answer 7

-His ideas are NOT correct
- Acquired characteristics CANNOT be passed on, can’t choose the traits that get passed on
- However it was a start of an explanation
- All species evolve over time
- Species evolves in response to its environment - becomes better adapted
- Changes are passed from generation to generation

Question 8

What are fossils

Answer 8

• Preserved remains and traces of past life
• Bones turn into minerals

Question 9

George Cuvier

Answer 9

• Found simple organisms were found in all depths of rocks
• More complex are only found in shallow depths
• Shallower depths are more likely to resemble living species
• Rock layers contain fossils of many species that do not occur in layers above or below them

Question 10

Catastrophism?

Answer 10

• Cuvier’s response was that the Earth had undergone a series of catastrophes, catastrophes that wiped out past species
• The pattern of fossils could be accounted for by a series of global catastrophes that wiped out most species on Earth

Question 11

Uniformitarianism?

Answer 11

• Charles Lyell described uniformitarianism as the very slow, gradual process/method by which the Earth had changed
• Geological processes, laying down sediment, occurs extremely slowly
  In order for layers of rock to develop it would take many many years.
• Geological changes are slow and gradual and that natural laws and processes have not changed over time

Question 12

Artificial Selection

Answer 12

• Human Influence path of different organisms
• Process where humans choose desirable traits in plants or animals
• Selective breeding - Enhance characteristics
• Occurs over many gens