Evolution Flashcards
What is evolution?
- the gradual change of populations over time that is measured in generations
- process through which organisms are thought to develop and change over time
Who is Aristotle and how does he relate to evolution?
He is a Greek philosopher and naturalist who proposed the great chain of being
What is the Vitruvian man and how is he related to evolution?
this was a human body that was divinely created and it reinforced the thoughts that people had about the hierarchy of species
Who was Carl von Linne and how did he contribute to evolutionary theories?
- didn’t believe in evolution
- thought God was the creator
- gave species organized names (binomial nomenclature)
Who was George-Louis Leclerc and how did he contribute to evolutionary theories?
- comparative morphologist
- hypothesized about vestigial structures in animals- thought they must have had a function at some point
- started thinking about animals changing through time
Who was Georges Cuvier and how did he contribute to evolutionary theories?
- considered the father of palaeontology
- thought fossils in different layers represented the different times
- established that species can go extinct
- proposed catastrophism
Who was Charles Lyell and how did he contribute to evolutionary theories?
- developed uniformitarianism
- geological processes are very slow and take millions of years
Who was Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and how did he contribute to evolutionary theories?
- species change in response to their environment
- changes are inherited
- thought body parts could grow and shrink according to use
- called this theory inheritance of acquired characteristics
Who was Charles Darwin and how did he contribute to evolutionary theories?
- theory of natural selection
- populations evolve not individuals
- artificial selection
- explored and discovered new species
What is catastrophism?
sudden events on Earth that wipe out many species at once
What is uniformitarianism?
geological processes in the past are the same that occur today
What is artificial selection?
intentional reproduction of organisms where humans play a part of achieving certain outcomes
What is natural selection?
theory of evolution in which the offspring that survive pass along the successful traits and those traits that do not support successful offspring will die off
