Lecture 9. Darwin's Insights

Question 1

What are three things you could say about life ?

Answer 1

1. Amazingly diverse
2. Mostly bacteria and insects
3. Largely unknown

Question 2

What is unique to living things ?

Answer 2

Design for purpose

Question 3

How could you say animals arose ?

Answer 3

A selective, cumulative process

Question 4

What part does chance play in animal arisal ?

Answer 4

Only a small part

Question 5

In what form does chance take in the animal arisal ?

Answer 5

Mutations

Question 6

What proof is there that poor design in of animals ?

Answer 6

The vertebrate eye, light comes in through all the wiring and not from the side where the receptor cells are

Question 7

What questions did Charles Darwin consider for his entire life ?

Answer 7

1. Why is there life on earth?
2. Why is life on earth so diverse?
3. Why do living things appear to be designed?
4. Why does some of that design that appear so poor ?

Question 8

What did Plato suggest and Aristotle support ?

Answer 8

Essentialism

Question 9

What is essentialism ?

Answer 9

All objects have a substance that makes the thing what it is, and without which it would be not that kind of thing

Question 10

What did Louis Agassiz argue ?

Answer 10

That species were fixed, reflecting the mind of the creator

Question 11

What did Carl Linnaeus, Jean-Baptiste Lamark and Erasamus Darwin question ?

Answer 11

The immutability of species

Question 12

Who classified living things ?

Answer 12

Carl Linnaeus

Question 13

How did Carl Linnaeus naming system work ?

Answer 13

It was a 2 part names for genus and species

Question 14

What did Carl Linnaeus recognise ?

Answer 14

A hierarchical phylogeny

Question 15

What did Erasamus Darwin contain ideas about ?

Answer 15

1. Common descent
2. Heritability
3. Survival of the Fittest
4. Struggle for Existence
5. Evolution

Question 16

What did Georges Cuvier believe in ?

Answer 16

Catastrophism

Question 17

What is catastrophism ?

Answer 17

The theory that changes in the earth’s crust during geological history have resulted chiefly from sudden violent and unusual events

Question 18

What did James Hutton believe in ?

Answer 18

Gradualism

Question 19

What is gradualism ?

Answer 19

Small apparently weak forces eg. river could given enough time have huge geographical effects eg. canyon

Question 20

What did Charles Lyell believe in ?

Answer 20

Uniformitarianism

Question 21

What is uniformitarianism ?

Answer 21

All geological processes ever existing are still going on

Question 22

Who suggested evolution by vertical speciation ?

Answer 22

Jean Baptiste Lamark

Question 23

What are the two forces suggested by evolution by vertical speciation ?

Answer 23

1. Complexifying force

2. Environmental force

Question 24

What is the complexifying force in evolution by vertical speciation ?

Answer 24

Driving organisms up a ladder of complexity from single cell infusorian towards more complex species

Question 25

What is the evolutionary force in evolution by vertical speciation ?

Answer 25

Adapted them to local environments through use and disuse of characteristics. Regularly used organs got stronger, disused one disappeared

Question 26

What did Thomas Robert Malthus believe ?

Answer 26

Principle of population

Question 27

What is the principle of population ?

Answer 27

The human population will increase exponentially (2,4,8,16) but the food supply increases arithmetically (1,2,3,4). The population will thus eventually exceed the food supply, until famine, war or disease will restore the balance

Question 28

What did Alfred Russell Wallace believe in ?

Answer 28

Transmutation of species

Question 29

What is the transmutation of species ?

Answer 29

Species changing into different species

Question 30

What were Darwin's and Wallace's insights ?

Answer 30

1. Horizontal speciation 2. Gradualism 3. Common descent 4. Man as an animal (not Wallace) 5. Natural selection

Question 31

What is horizontal speciation ?

Answer 31

When two species could both have evolved from the same ancestor by a split in the evolutionary line

Question 32

What is Darwin and Wallace's thoughts on gradualism ?

Answer 32

Speciation happened gradually not a sudden change to a new type

Question 33

What is common descent ?

Answer 33

All life could have one single ancestor

Question 34

What did Darwin believe about natural selection ?

Answer 34

That it is the mechanism of evolution