Question Description
I’m working on a history project and need support to help me learn.
Write a short comment about how the lecture’s content relates to your own personal experience, professional goals, and/or cultural values. There are no right or wrong answers to this exercise, as long as you are being reflective and trying to connect the content in class to your own experience. Aim for 50-100 words in length.
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History of evolutionary
thought
Anthropology 2200
Our place in the planet
Anthropology!
Science
A body of knowledge and a
methodology
Hierarchical
Progressive/Incremental
Hierarchical nature of science
Sociology
Physiology
Chemistry
Physics
The scientific method
Identification of a problem or topic of interest (observation and a
question)
Statement of hypothesis
Experiment/Observation/Data collection
Evaluation of the hypothesis
Construction of a theory
• If the hypothesis can be repeatedly verified and stands
What is Evolution?
Biological change from
generation to generation
Evolution in the Lab
Evolution is an observation
about the natural world
Fossils
Artificial Breeding
What is
Evolutionary
Theory?
Early thoughts on origins
• Ancient Greek Essentialism
• Ideal Forms
Early thoughts on
origins
• Ideal forms
• The “scalae naturae”
• Medieval Christian theology
Middle Ages
Belief in a young, static Earth
• Archbishop James Usher (1648)
calculated a creation date of
Sunday, October 23, 4004 B.C.
• Added ages and dates listed
in the Old Testament
All creatures were static
• Did not change from original, created
forms
• Had a set place in the Great Chain of
Being
The
problem of
extinction
An expanding
world
Fantastic new creatures!
Incredible human
variation
The Fact of
Evolution:
How do we
observe biological
change?
• Is the earth old enough for species
to change?
• Do species change over time?
• Do different species have a common
origin?
Scientific Revolution
Nicolaus Copernicus’ On the
Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
(1543)
• Solar system is heliocentric
Some of the New Ideas:
• Laws of motion and gravity
• Circulatory system
• Microscopic life forms
Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626): British
statesman emphasized testing
assumptions
1. Is the earth old enough?
Earlier Thoughts
Bedrock of the earth made
of layers deposited by water
(sedimentation)
• Thought to occur during a
one-time worldwide flood
• Fossils were animals that
drowned in the flood
Comte de Buffon (1707 – 1788)
• Studied physical laws about the heating and cooling of
Earth-sized objects
• Said that the earth started as molten rock and needed
time to cool down
• Calculated age of earth at between 75,000 and 3 million
years
James Hutton (1726 – 1797)
Found unconformities, or
boundaries between rock
types (Siccar Point in
Edinburgh, Scotland)
Rock Cycle
• Surface is not static, but
is constantly eroded,
compressed, and
volcanically deposited at
a slow pace
• Requires millions of
years for rock layers to
build up
Charles Lyell (1797 – 1875)
Rediscovered Hutton’s work
• Sea level changes
• Giant volcanos on
top of old rocks
• Erosion forming valleys
Uniformitarianism – earth is
changed by natural
processes operating both
today and in the past
2. Do Species Change Over
Time?
Study of Fossils: the
physical remains of part or all
of once-living organisms,
mostly bones and teeth, that
have become mineralized by
the replacement of organic
(living) with inorganic (nonliving) materials
Original Questions: Are they
chance rock shapes, or did
they fall from the sky?
Robert Hooke (1635
– 1703)
• Fossil wood and living
wood have identical
structure
• Fossils were once
living things!
Fossil Animals
Have Gone Extinct
Georges Cuvier (1769 –
1832):
Indian Elephant
Lower Jaws
• Elephant fossils in
Paris distinct from
Africa, Asia, Siberian
mammoths
• Parisian elephants =
an extinct species
Mammoth
Lower Jaws
What causes
extinction?
Cuvier thought that it must result from a
catastrophe
• Volcanos, earthquakes, floods
Catastrophism
• Opposite of
uniformitarianism
We will learn that most extinction occurs due
to forces of evolution, rather than violent
geological events.
John Ray (1627 – 1705):
3. Do
different
species have
a common
origin?
• Searched for a divine
organization of
species
• Grouped species based
on several features
• Previous: One
feature or organ
• Species = ultimate unit
of taxonomy
(Classification of life
forms)
Carolus Linnaeus (1707 –
1778)
Provided the
classification system
that is still in use
today
Kingdom
Phylum
Class
Order
Family
Genus
Species
Human
Taxonomy
Evolutionary Thought Before
Darwin
Observation/Fact that evolution occurs:
1. The earth is old enough for species to change
2. Species have changed
3. Some species have similar features that make them appear to
be more closely related
Evolutionary thought:
What is the process that allows species to change?
Erasmus Darwin
(1731 – 1802)
• Grandfather of Charles Darwin
How do species change?
Traits gained during life are passed on to offspring
Why are species similar?
All life developed from a “single living filament”
Chevalier de Lamarck (1744 – 1829)
Lamarckian Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics
• Actions during life cause new traits in the body
• These changes are passed on to offspring
New traits
caused by
desire to
change
Lamarck believed that life was forever being
generated
f
e
Time
d
c
b
a
Problems with Acquired
Inheritance
1. Not seen in real life
• Circumcision
• Body building
• Ear cropping in dogs
2. DNA in sperm or egg not changed
3. Only would emphasize current traits, not create
new ones
Charles Darwin
• Medical School: University of Edinburgh, Scotland
• Natural History: Cambridge University, England
• Naturalist to the HMS Beagle
Darwin
convinced
people of the
reality of
evolution and
provided a
mechanism
for it.
Darwin’s 4 big influences:
• Uniformitarianism
• The voyage of the Beagle
• Selective breeding
• Malthus
UNIFORMITARIANISM
James Hutton
• Angular Unconformities
• Charles Lyell
• Principles of Geology
•
The Voyage
of the Beagle
Galapagos Archipelago
Artificial Selection
Thomas
Malthus
What did Darwin base his work on?
From Lyell & Hutton:
• Earth is old
• Gradualism
From Malthus:
• Ideas about reproduction, populations, and variation
From Cuvier:
• Fossils resemble living forms
From Linnaeus & Lamarck:
• Species are related
• Species can change
Darwin’s observations
Species have high potential fertility & populations should grow exponentially
• Yet, population size is normally stable
Natural resources are limited
No two individuals are exactly the same; populations have great variability
Much of this variation is heritable
Darwin’s inferences
More individuals born than can be
supported by available resources
leading to a competition for survival
Survival is non-random
Over generations, selection leads to:
Keep in mind Darwin was not aware
of the actual (genetic) level on which
his proposed process worked
• Depends on heritable constitution (genetics) of
individuals
• (genetic) change in the population (microevolution)
•production of new species (macroevolution)
Natural
Selection
Variants that help survival or
reproduction become more
frequent in the population
Natural Selection causes
evolutionary change
whenever there is genetic
variation for traits that affect
fitness.
Darwin’s
Delay
Alfred Russel Wallace
(1823-1913)
• 1836 – Darwin’s voyage on the HMS Beagle
• 1858 – Wallace published a paper on a
similar concept of natural selection
• 1859 – pushed Darwin to publish On the
Origin of Species by Means of Natural
Selection
Variation is random
After 1859:
Clarifying
Natural
Selection
Variations are very small
The environment must change or things will stay
the same
Organisms are adapted to their previous
environments
It is really a theory about local adaptation
What is
evolution, as
understood
today?
• Evolution is the change (of gene frequencies) in
a population over time
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Explanation & Answer:
100 Words
Tags:
Cultural Values
Scientific Explanation
experiences in the environment
History of evolutionary
thought
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