Psychology 3720F/G Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Spontaneous Generation, Natural Selection, Selectin
14 Jan 2015
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January 13, 2015: the origin of species: evolutionary biology, the doctrine of spontaneous generation. Species spontaneously appear in fully developed form from non-living matter. Such as how adam came from the dust of the earth and eve came from. Scientists believed this up until the late 1700s: 1809: lamarck. Species don"t spontaneously appear from nonliving form. There is an historical continuity in development later species replace earlier species. The doctrine of evolution: how does evolution occur. Acquired characteristics: from use and non-use of body parts (if a body part wasn"t used, it would degenerate and disappear but if a body part was used extensively, it would grow bigger) These acquired characteristics are inherited and passed onto offspring. E. g. a short necked animal evolves into a giraffe because it has to reach higher and higher for leaves as it eats them. Problem: characteristics are acquired, but they are not passed onto future generations.
