Term
| principle of uniformitarianism (pre-darwinian people and their ideas about evolution) |
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Definition
| the laws of nature that we observe around us today have always acted throughout time the way they are currently acting today (proposed by Buffon and he saw no evidence of evolution) |
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Term
| Lamarck's ideas of evolution (1st person to argue for evolution of species) |
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Definition
1.fossils were NOT extinct species just early forms that had been transformed into modern species (did not believe in extinction!)
2.spontaneous generation of primitive life (most primitive forms are more advanced, did not believe in speciation)
3. simple to complex forms due to innate tendency for self-improvement
4. mechanism of evolution is inheritance of acquired traits |
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Term
| Darwin's Theory of Evolution |
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Definition
1. EVOLUTION happens (pops change over time, they change in their genetic composition over time)
2.evolution usually happens gradually (pop change over 100s to 1000s of yrs)
3. speciation occurs: 1 species splits into 2 or more.
4. All species share common ancestry (as a result of splitting of lineages from one ancestral life form)
5. much of evolutionary change was caused by NATURAL SELECTION, which is the sole process producing adaptation (appearance of design) |
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Term
| Overview of evolution by natural selection |
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Definition
1. individuals in a pop vary in many aspects of trails like morphology, physiology, behavior, etc, and much of these individual differences are inherited.
2. individuals also differ in # of offspring they leave to next generation, these diff can be due to variation in both survival and reproduction.
3. if individual diff in traits correlate w/ diff in fitness, then favored traits will be more common in pop in next gen. The pop will evolve by natural selection. |
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Term
| mimicry and natural selection |
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Definition
| mimicry shows power of natural selection -- shows that there must be tons of genetic variation in all aspects of the morphology of mimic and that selection is strong enough to shape it into such realistic imitations. |
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Term
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Definition
| A discontinuous genetic variation that results in different forms or types of individuals among the members of a single species. (example: European cuckoo that mimics eggs of other species-- there are 4 diff genetic types in same population that mimic different eggs) |
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Term
| scientific "fact" (truth) |
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Definition
| an assertion for which there is so much evidence it would be perverse to deny it (theory of evolution) |
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Term
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Definition
| if all creatures share common ancestry, then we should be able to find transitional forms that connect modern groups to their common ancestors. (birds evolved from reptiles |
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Term
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Definition
| fish --> amphibians, early reptiles--> mammals, human ancestry |
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Term
| vestigial organs (humans) |
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Definition
| wisdom teeth, reminant tail, appendix, moving ears |
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Term
| things that reveal common ancestory |
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Definition
| vestigial organs, homologous traits, embryology, same genetic code, vestigial genes |
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