BIOL 3030 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Erasmus Darwin, James Ussher, James Hutton
19 Feb 2017
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8/19/16 8/19/2016 6:02:00 PM
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Evolution
• Antibiotic resistant bacteria
CHAPTER 2
• Setting stage for Darwin
o Nature of science
o Time and a changing world
o Organisms and diversity of life
o Organisms are well suited to their environments
The Nature of Science- natural vs supernatural explanations
• Creation stories in recorded human history
• Change started by early Greek Philosophers and methodological
naturalism
• Empedocles 400BCE
o Body parts emerging from earth, flopping around to combine,
combinations that were well suited to their environment
persisted
o First ideas of survival of the fittest
Methodological naturalism
• Important first steps by early Greeks
• Mostly “armchair” explanations
Aristotle (student of Plato)
• 2 contributions:
o logic- application of logical rules for formulating general
principles
o hypothesis testing- principles must agree with the facts
Earth
• Greeks said earth was static and it stuck with people
• Plate tectonics was accepted in the 60’s
• Age
o James ussher- oct 23 4004 BCE
o Isaac newton 3998 BCE
o Gorges-louis Leclerc comte Buffon- based on heat said 75,000
to 2-3million years
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
o James Hutton- based on strata, erosion, fossils, said
inconceivably old
o Charles Lyell 1797-1875
▪ Catastrophism was common belief- instantaneous
creation but he proposed uniformitarianism
▪ Uniformitarianism- changes happen gradual over time
▪ Principles of Geology published 1830
▪ Influential to Darwin
Coral attols/rings from volcanoes in ocean
Origins and Diversity of Life
• Great chain of being
o Scala naturae- Plato and Aristotle
▪ All species created in their perfect from by God as a link
in a chain from simple to complex
▪ Though variation of a species was a mistake
▪ Current taxonomy system is rooted in this idea
o Carl Linnaeus 1707-1778
▪ Invented binomial nomenclature-classification scheme
▪ Believe species were immutable- describe all species to
reveal God’s grand plan
• Spontaneous generation
o Idea persisted for thousands of years
o Francisco Reddi in 1668- early example of a modern
experiment
▪ Meat in a jar experiment of maggots/flies on meat
▪ Control, lid and mesh cover
▪ Suggested that life could not comes from non-life, no
spontaneous generation
• Early Evolutionary ideas
o Middles ages killed science in Europe, but not in Arabic world
o Al-Jahiz published Book of Animals
▪ Ideas of survival of the fittest
o George Buffon
▪ Common morphological features are an expression of
relationships- common ancestor, species are related
o James Burnett
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
▪ Humans related to apes, natural selection ideas ahead
of his time
o Erasmus Darwin
▪ Developed pattern of descent of modern organisms
▪ Noted struggle for existence but didn’t connect it to
change
• Organisms are well-suited to their environments
o Lamarck
▪ Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics IAC
An organisms efforts during its lifetime causes
changes to its phenotype, and these changes are
passed to its offspring
Pattern: key claim is that evolution is progressive,
leads to chain of life
Process: key claim is that individuals change in
response to their environment and pass these
changes to offspring
▪ Embraced great chain of being but proposed a natural
explanation
▪ Giraffe illustration
o Patrick Matthew
▪ Book on Naval Timber and Arboriclture
▪ Proposed the circumstance-adaptive law, VERY similar
to Darwin’s natural selection
▪ Ignored because buried in appendix of obscure book,
didn’t connect natural selection to common descent
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Chapter 2: setting stage for darwin, nature of science, time and a changing world, organisms and diversity of life, organisms are well suited to their environments. Methodological naturalism: important first steps by early greeks, mostly armchair explanations. Aristotle (student of plato: 2 contributions: logic- application of logical rules for formulating general principles, hypothesis testing- principles must agree with the facts. An organisms efforts during its lifetime causes changes to its phenotype, and these changes are passed to its offspring. Pattern: key claim is that evolution is progressive, leads to chain of life. What good is half an eye or half a wing? (chap 3: problem 2: vestigial traits (leftover traits) Why do some species have seemingly useless traits. Bc people don"t know where variation comes from. Ex beach mice: variation: on color, variation of coat color within populations, heredity: 2 genes responsible dark/light coat color- yes, fitness consequences: yes, color standing out on background gets eaten/attacked more.
