BIOL 11000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 25: Social Darwinism, Natural Selection

• School: Purdue University
• Department: Biological Sciences
• Course: BIOL 11000
• Professor: Athena Anderson

Document Summary

Evolution is a theory about the origin of life: correction: branching" of the tree of life. Organisms are always getting better through evolution: correction: not progress, determined by environment. Evolution means that life changed by chance": correction: organisms better-adapted to their environments survive, which is not random. Natural selection involves organisms trying" to adapt: correction: adaptation not controlled by organism; well-adapted individuals to survive. Natural selection gives organisms what they need": correction: natural selection is not an intelligence that knows what organisms need"; those better-suited leave more offspring. Evolution is just" a theory: correction: in scientific terms, a theory is a hypothesis with a large body of supporting evidence, and nothing that has ever disproven it. Gaps in the fossil record disprove evolution: correction: many transitional fossils, but lack of fossils does not disprove the theory. Evolutionary theory is incomplete: correction: what we know based on discoveries, always changing; evolution is the only well-supported explanation.