Flashcards
History of Evolution - Darwin
Cards in this deck (15)
- 1What are the three proposed mechanisms of change?Special creation, Lamarck and Darwin
- 2Lamarck's theory:- Changes in the environment give changes in the use of an organ
- A characteristic is acquired
- changes are inherited
(Inheritance of acquired characteristics) - 3Classic example of Lamarck's theory?Giraffe's. He suggested they used to have short necks but kept having to strain for higher up food so offspring had longer necks and so on.
- 4Summary of Lamarck?- Predicts gradual change
- Needs a long period of time
- Driven by the environment
- Change is NOT due to chance
- internal desire to improve
- increase in complexity - 5Darwin's theory of evolution:- mutation causes change and if it is a helpful mutation the organism survives longer and passes genes on better
- change IS due to chance - 6Where did Darwin study?Started in Shrewsbury, then to Edinburgh, then Cambridge, then London and lived the rest of his life in the Down House.
- 7Who were Darwin's grandfathers?Erasmus Darwin and Josiah Wedgewood who were both members of the Lunar society
- 8What did Darwin do at Edinburgh?- He was a failed medic
-He collected beetles
-Learned Geology (the kind that Lyell published)
- Learned taxidermy
- Attended a variety of lectures - 9What did Darwin do after Edinburgh?He became a clergyman and followed a new religious dogma
- 10How did Darwin begin travelling?He took part in the Voyage of the Beagle. He eventually became the captain's naturalist.
- 11What did Darwin learn on the Beagle?- Succession of types (decent with modification)
- Representative types - variation and geographical isolation
- Huge amount of continuous variation
- Ocean islands have migrations and common descent - 12What did Darwin look into when he returned from Voyages?Sequence of fossils, rudimentary organs, comparative anatomy, embryology, agriculture, new explorations and Malthus
- 13What findings did Malthus publish?- Overproduction of young
- Rising population outstrips resources
- Lower classes are 'irresponsible'
He thought the solution was to regulate family size of lower class people to stop them producing more children they can't support - 14What did Wallace do?He too came up with the idea of Natural Selection and was going to publish a paper on it before Darwin. The only difference in their beliefs was that Wallace didn't believe that man was the result of natural selection. They published a joint paper on the topic in the end
- 15What did Huxley do in birmingham?He was known as Darwin's bulldog and he popularised the theory of Natural selection by countering Wilberforce and Owen