Evolution Before Darwin - MT3 - Part 2 Flashcards
Who is Charles Darwin’s grandfather?
Erasmus Darwin
What book did Erasmus Darwin write?
Zoonomia
What is some evidence for evolution that Erasmus discovered? (3)
- Similarities among mammals
- comparative anatomy - Inherited varablility
- Aniamals must form a natural group
- common ancestor
The case of evolutionary change
The faculty of continuing to improve by its own inherent activity, and of delivering down those improvements by generation to its posterity
- inheritance of characteristics acquired during life
- effort –> results in strengthening –> leads to inherited genetic legacy
What did Darwin conclude about warm blooded animals?
That they were descended from one common ancestor
Adiaphorism
A christian protestant theological theory that certiain rules and actions were matters of indifference in religion since not forbidden by the scriptures
What did Lamarck have? (4)
- Physical courage
- Intellectual courage
- Could think flexibly
- Could think creatively
What was Lamarck?
An accomplished botanist
What did Lamarck identify?
Biological keys
What did Lamarck invent? (3)
- Biology
- Biosphere
- Invertebrates
What were 2 kinds of Lamarck’s invertebrates?
- Insects
2. Worms
What did Linnaean hierarchies suggest?
Relationships
What was Linnaean the first to do?
Gather everything and give a case
What was Linnaean no the first to do?
Discover the separate strands of biology
What does the reality of evolutionary changes mean?
That evolution must occur if life is to survive
- couldnt have static life with the earth cnahging
How does evolution solve the problem of extinction?
New species evolve to take the place of vanished ones
- animals evolve to fill in the gaps of extinction
What were Lamarck’s 2 cases of evolution?
- The innate tendency for living things to increase the complexity of their organization and function
- Use and disuse
How does Lamarck think complexity arises?
From fluids sloshing around an organisms, carving out new channels and organs, thus increasing their complexity
- this novel complexity is inherited
What does Lamarck think of the use and disuse theory?
If an organ or part is used it increases heritability in size and in strength. If it is not used, it deteriorates and disappears
- also heritably
What does heritably lead to?
Branching
How did Lamarck try and prove his use and disuse theory?
By cutting off mice’s tails and having them mate so he could see what their offsprings would look like
- expected the tails to get shorter
How did Lamarck impede evolutionary work?
Unscientific work
- lack of knowledge on physiology
What years are Patrick Matthew?
1790-1874
What was Matthew?
He was a well travelled and well rounded Scottish landowner
What does Matthew’s book describe? (2)
- Natural selection
2. Common descent
What was Matthew’s analogy of natural selection?
If you are cutting down trees to build ships, you are cutting down the best trees and leaving the worst trees
- harvesting trees were not random
Gene pool
The stock of different genes in an interbreading population
Why was Robert Chambers an anonymous author?
Because he was undertaking an unpopular idea in science and thought it was better to do it from the side lines
- his name was revealed after his death
What does Vestiges argue?
That the evolution of life occurs and that this is part of a general law of development of the universe
- explains history of world is part of a larger process
What is Chambers evidence for the reality of evolution? (4)
- Fossil strata in the stratigraphical column suggests a temporal sequence
- Comparative anatomy
- eg) bird wings - Comparative embryology
- Apparent progression from simple to complex within groups of organisms
What did Chambers believe?
That new life arose by frequent spontaneous generation events
- after they formed, species evolved by means of variable stopping points in embryological development
- new species remain as embryos longer during development
Why was Vestiges of the “Natural History of Creation” full of errors?
Because Chambers was not a scientist
