Exam 2 questions

Question 1

Pigeon breeding was shown in class as an example of this process that Darwin considered analogous to natural selection

Answer 1

artificial selection

Question 2

This philosopher introduced the concept of consilience

Answer 2

William Whewell

Question 3

This animal described in class is a member of the monotreme order - mammals that lay eggs

Answer 3

platypus

Question 4

This type of explanation/causation focuses on the more or less immediate causes of the trait (e.g., testosterone is the cause of aggression)

Answer 4

proximate

Question 5

This scientist believed that acquired characteristics were inherited

Answer 5

Lamarck

Question 6

This term is often used to refer to evolved features of organisms because they look like they have been “designed”

Answer 6

designoid

Question 7

Darwin was strongly influenced by this individual’s work on the relationship between population growth and resources

Answer 7

Thomas Malthus

Question 8

This term refers to the upper limit of the ability of a particular environment to maintain populations of organisms

Answer 8

carrying capacity

Question 9

This object is a better symbolic representation of the process of evolution than a “ladder of progress”

Answer 9

branching tree or web

Question 10

This type of explanation/causation focuses on the evolved function of a trait

Answer 10

ultimate

Question 11

Approximately, what is the age of the Earth and its solar system?

Answer 11

4.6 billion years old

Question 12

This geologist was the main proponent of a catastrophist view of the geological history of earth

Answer 12

Georges Cuvier

Question 13

This individual (who coined the phrase, survival of the fittest) misapplied evolutionary theory by assuming that the weakest, or less fit, individuals and groups in society should be allowed to fail

Answer 13

Herbert Spencer

Question 14

Most of the habitats visited by the Beagle were of this climate type

Answer 14

tropical

Question 15

This type of speciation occurs as a result of groups of animals becoming geographically isolated from one another

Answer 15

allopatric speciation

Question 16

On the Beagle trip, Darwin was particularly interested in the forms of life on these islands

Answer 16

Galapagos

Question 17

The individual who argued that, through actual observation and analogy, one could determine the causes for most events

Answer 17

Herschel

Question 18

This geologist was the major proponent of the uniformitarian theory of the Earth’s geological history

Answer 18

Charles Lyell

Question 19

Darwin’s theory wasn’t concerned with the origin of life but the origin of these

Answer 19

species

Question 20

This scientist postulated an overriding kind of intelligence that he called general intelligence or g

Answer 20

Charles Spearman

Question 21

What two observations regarding naturally occurring populations of organisms provide the formal starting point for Darwin’s five-part theory of natural selection?

Answer 21

1. populations of organisms increase at a geometric rate

2. in a natural environment, however, populations stabilize at a certain level

Question 22

What is the major conceptual error in this statement?

Life on Earth has evolved from primitive bacteria to human beings

Answer 22

every species is as equally evolved as another- humans are different from bacteria, not a superior product

Question 23

What is the difference between ontogeny and phylogeny?

Answer 23

ontogeny is the study of specific parts or adaptations while phylogeny is concerned with species as wholes and comparing and classifying them on an evolutionary scale

Question 24

What is the scala naturae?

Answer 24

it’s the “great chain of being”; a religously based hierarchical classification for all matter and life, from rocks to animals, including humans, angels, and god

Question 25

Describe how Darwin’s theory of evolution involves a combination of a random process and a non-random process

Answer 25

random: random mutations in organisms which produce natural individual variation
non-random: natural selection is selective pressure on the best suited traits (deliberate)

Question 26

For what is Carl Linnaeus best known?

Answer 26

for being the father of taxonomy and for developing a classification system for life on Earth

Question 27

How is Tennyson’s poetic phrase “…nature red in tooth and claw” not a very accurate reflection of Darwinian theory?

Answer 27

This phrase implies that natural selection rewards cutthroat, competitive behaviors but does not account for the highly adaptive altruistic behaviors present in a great variety of species

Question 28

Darwin’s theory does not predict that you will find in the fossil record organisms that are half one currently existing species and half another. What does it predict that you will find?

Answer 28

that the fossil record will show common ancestors of currently existing species like tiktaalik which is not half frog and half fish but a transitional species related to amphibians and fish

Question 29

According to the text, what important contribution to psychology was made by the team of Binet and Simon?

Answer 29

they developed an intelligence test that was a more accurate method than Galton’s word association tests which incorrectly scored deaf children as being of very intelligence

Question 30

How did Galapagos tortoises “get to” the Galapagos Islands?

Answer 30

the sea turtle ancestors of the current tortoises swam to the islands and then, over time, the current giant tortoise species developed