Early Evolutionary Ideas And Darwin's Insight

Front 1

Catastrophism

Back 1

The theory that the geology of the modern world is the result of sudden, catastrophic, large-scale events. (p. 34)

Front 2

Evolutionary synthesis

Back 2

The collected efforts, primarily in the 1930s and 1940s, of evolutionary biologists, systematists, geneticists, paleontologists, population biologists, population geneticists, and naturalists in shaping modern evolutionary theory to show that a Darwinian view of small-scale and large-scale evolution alike is compatible with the mechanisms of genetic inheritance. Also known as the modern synthesis. (p. 56)

Front 3

Hypotheses

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Proposed explanations for a natural phenomenon. Scientists are interested in hypotheses that generate testable predictions. (p. 32)

Front 4

Inheritance of acquired characteristics

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The hypothesis that traits acquired during the lifetime of an organism are passed on to its offspring. This idea was championed by J. B. Lamarck. (p. 39)

Front 5

Methodological naturalism

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An approach in which the world is explained solely in terms of natural, rather than supernatural, phenomena. (p. 31)

greek philosophers

Front 6

Modern synthesis

Back 6

The collected efforts, primarily in the 1930s and 1940s, of evolutionary biologists, systematists, geneticists, paleontologists, population biologists, population geneticists, and naturalists in shaping modern evolutionary theory to show that a Darwinian view of small-scale and large-scale evolution alike is compatible with the mechanisms of genetic inheritance. (p. 56)

Front 7

Natural history

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The comprehensive study of organisms in their natural environment. (p. 35)

Front 8

Population

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A group of individuals of the same species that are found within a defined area and, if they are a sexual species, interbreed with one another. (p. 37)

Front 9

Saltationism

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The hypothesis that evolutionary change occurs primarily as a result of large-scale changes. (p. 55)

Front 10

Spontaneous generation

Back 10

The now-disproven hypothesis that complex life-forms can arise, de novo, from inorganic matter. (p. 36)

Front 11

Struggle for existence

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Darwin's idea that organisms are continually in competition for resources. (p. 37)

Front 12

Systematics

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The scientific study of classifying organisms. (p. 52)

Front 13

Transformational process

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A process of change in which the properties of a group change because every member of that group changes.

Front 14

Uniformitarianism

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Charles Lyell's theory that the very same geological processes that we observe today have operated over vast stretches of time, and explain the geology of the past and the present; opposed Catastrophism (p. 34)

Front 15

five major developments in science

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1. methodological naturalism

2. hypothesis testing
3. a changing world

4. uniformitarianism

5. species arise from other species

Front 16

Darwin’s 2 important insights

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natural selection & common ancestry

Front 17

relationship between artificial and natural selection

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The selective agent: breeder vs. environment

Traits being selected: traits that the breeder wants vs. traits that increase survival and reproduction

Front 18

common ancestry

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natural selection can generate multiple new species from a single ancestral species.

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importance of common ancestry

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provides an explanation for hierarchical patterns of similarity

Front 20

hypothesis testing

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if explanations are based on natural laws, then they can be subjected to empirical test

Aristotle

Front 21

a changing world

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the study of plants vs. animals and fossils led some to recognize that change happens

Front 22

species arise from other species

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organisms can only arise from other similar organisms (i.e. their parents)

Front 23

importance of modern synthesis

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founded the field of mendelian genetics