ANTA01H3 Chapter 2: ANT Chapter 2
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Anta01 chapter 2 the development of evolutionary theory. Humans did not evolve from monkeys or chimpanzees, the earliest human ancestors evolved from a species that lived some 5-8 million years ago (mya) last common ancestor we share with chimpanzees. Monkeys still exist b/c as lineages diverged from a common ancestor; each group went its separate ways. Natural selection refers to genetic change or changes in the frequencies of certain traits in populations due to differential reproductive success b/w individuals. Throughout the middle ages, one predominant feature of the european worldview was that all aspects of nature, including all forms of life and their relationships to one another, never changed. Fixity of species the belief that life-forms couldn"t change; this idea opposed theories of biological evolution. Until the concepts of fixity and time were fundamentally altered, it was impossible to conceive of evolution by means of natural selection.
