BIO120H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Jerry Coyne, Carl Linnaeus, Special Creation
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BIO120H1 Full Course Notes
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Required reading: chapter 1 in why evolution is true by jerry coyne. A species undergoes genetic change over time, over many generations. All species evolve, not necessarily at the same rate. Whales and humans have evolved rapidly, while the coelacanth looks identical to its fossilized ancestors: gradualism: It takes many generations to produce a substantial evolutionary change. If evolution only meant gradual genetic change within a species, there would still be only one species: speciation (and common ancestry are two sides of the same coin): Every species goes back to a single, common ancestor. Speciation means the evolution of different groups that can"t have a fertile offspring: common ancestry: One can look back in time using dna sequences or fossils to nd descendants joining at their ancestors. Organisms with similar features likely have similar genes (this is the method carl linnaeus used to begin classifying animals and plants)
