Theories of evolution Flashcards
What was Empedocles theory of evolution?
Empedocles said that evolution is a combination of free moving body parts that fuse together and form an organism. He said that most of the time, these body parts produce organisms that will not survive, but sometimes they form the right organism that is capable of survival and reproduction
What was Thales theory of evolution?
Thales believed that all matter in the world is water, and humans are just a complicated combination of water. He also thought that we had connections to animals like they are our ancestors and that we evolved from them over time
What 2 theories of evolution were proposed by Erasmus Darwin (Darwin’s Grandfather)? What was a noted flaw in his theory?
He proposed 2 theories of:
- All animals are derived from a common ancestor
- Competition between males determines which animals would propagate and which would not (theory that physical strength also gets passed on)
- A flaw in his theory is determining what the first difference was that caused branching of the common ancestor. If we branched from a common ancestor, then we should all be the exact same but we aren’t so what caused that first difference?
What is the Lamarckian theory of evolution? How is it a better representation of E. Darwin’s theory? What is a flaw in the theory?
Lamarckian theory suggests that the characteristics that we acquire will get passed down to our offspring. For example, if we work out alot and get physically strong, then our kids will be just as strong and fit from the minute their born because that physical characteristic gets passed down to them.
- Unlike, E.Darwins theory, this one is capable of explaining the first difference, which in this case would be the genes of our common ancestors that depend on their physical characteristics and what they tried to overcome that got branched out and passed down to us
- A flaw in this theory is that genetics does not work this way and this doesn’t make sense
