ARCH 131 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Carl Linnaeus, Georges Cuvier, James Hutton
9 May 2017
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Why is this important? ex: 23&me. the great human odyssey. Is this going to be on the test. Chronology, & geography (the order & occasion of events) We talk about it all the time. Time to define our terms of reference. Theory: comprehensive, well-substantiated explanatory model (e. g. darwinian evolution. E. g. body size, colour, longevity, mating success. Science terms and concepts: probability - the likelihood of an event occurring under specific conditions. Describes likelihood, not certainty of any given outcome) Science tries to describe & explain natural phenomena. (think of it as increasing the size of a window) Good data (approx measurements, low error, good sampling); Remember: theory is comprehensive, well-substantiated explanatory model. It is used to make predictions about phenomena that haven"t yet been observed. Descent with modification by means of natural selection . Pre-requisites for darwinian theory: start classifying things. Taxonomies , classifying organisms according to their biological characteristics: challenge fixity of species.
