* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Download File - Eric Simmons
Survey
Document related concepts
Sexual selection wikipedia , lookup
Unilineal evolution wikipedia , lookup
Hindu views on evolution wikipedia , lookup
Creation and evolution in public education wikipedia , lookup
Acceptance of evolution by religious groups wikipedia , lookup
On the Origin of Species wikipedia , lookup
Natural selection wikipedia , lookup
Evidence of common descent wikipedia , lookup
Hologenome theory of evolution wikipedia , lookup
Sympatric speciation wikipedia , lookup
Catholic Church and evolution wikipedia , lookup
Punctuated equilibrium wikipedia , lookup
The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex wikipedia , lookup
Genetics and the Origin of Species wikipedia , lookup
Transcript
Eric Simmons Ryan Barney Biology 1090 Darwinism/Evolution When people hear the word “Darwinism” they think of things like the Darwin Awards or Evolution. What most people don’t understand is that there is a lot more behind the idea of Darwinism than just a website dedicated to giving awards to people who die in interesting ways or the idea of humans coming from a fish and later changing into humans. Normally some would find this either boring or not practical due to religious beliefs or just being plain lazy, but the point that I want to make is that there is more to Darwinism than meets the eye. The following will be discussed throughout the paper to have a clear understanding of what Darwinism really is and to show that with an open mind you can genuinely find an interesting stand view or point of the topic. The selection that will be covered first is who Charles Darwin was and how is idea of Evolution came to be, than Speciation what it is and how it works and finally Natural Selection and how it came to be. Hopefully this can help anyone who is trying to get a better understanding of Darwinism/Evolution can be educated and look at it in a different way as I have come to find it. Charles Darwin was a well-known scientist to the world, becoming infamous the discovery of evolution by natural selection and how it revolutionized biology. He was born in February 1809 in Shrewsbury Britain, you could say that Darwin was destined to be a doctor, or that is what is father wanted him to be because during those times Science was a silly subject to even really consider and the real fame and money was in Medicine. After dropping some school and other things he went on to sail around parts of the world to observe animal life on what was a planned 2 year voyage ended up being a 5 year trip, which changed him and the world. Charles Darwin was not the first person in the world to toy around with the idea of Evolution, that was Jean Lamarck, but instead of the concept of a ladder idea where one species becomes another, Darwin explained it like a tree with branch’s giving many different species. In our current Human Biology text we are using in class there is an excerpt that explained it perfectly, after returning from the Galapagos Islands, “Darwin reflected on his observations and concluded that the populations of tortoises on the different islands must have descended from a single ancestral tortoise population. 1 There was even a similar pattern of divergence between other groups of species on the islands and the closest mainland.” After making these observations he came up with the theory of evolution which can be defined as: all species on Earth are descendants of a single common ancestor, and all species represent the product of millions of years of accumulated micro evolutionary changes. Speciation is defined as, “The evolution of 1 or more species from an ancestral form.” For example, If we were to take a lizard from somewhere like Western Europe, where the climate fluctuates but it’s not just one extreme environment, we take 2 lizards and put one in a Desert and another in a tropic rain forest they will eventually with time adapt to that environment and end up changing color to either absorb the heat or even to blend in with the environment for defense. Even though they are in different parts of the world they still come from the same ancestry and have become a new type of species over time. Darwin discovered as he went from a different part of the world to another he observed that the species that were in those different environments had similar attributes and later came up with reproductive isolation, which is just a type of speciation, reproductive isolation is weak in the early stages of speciation, but changes to strong or complete in later stages of speciation. Finally natural selection, natural selection is the bread and butter to Darwin’s idea of Evolution. I saved this one for last because Darwin actually viewed evolution as natural selection. Darwin explained Natural Selection as, “species can form by the evolution of one species splitting into two, or via a population diverging from its extant ancestor to the point it was a new species.” Or also known today as survival of the fittest. Species would continue to live on in their natural habitat unless something caused them to move or become extinct or in other words it was either adapt or die. Most species would adapt and eventually with time become a whole new species but coming from the same ancestry. Sound familiar? It’s all a giant circle, evolution is defined as a change in species, what causes these species to change? A change in environment aka speciation, and if they evolve splitting into two species than they have beaten natural selection or the idea of “survival of the fittest.” Today, because of Darwin, natural selection is considered one of the most important causes of evolution. There are many other topics such as genetic drift and sexual selection also cause populations to change over time. It took many years for scientists to accept the concept of natural selection but today it has been accepted apart of biological science worldwide. 2 From what we discussed about Evolution, or Darwinism, speciation and natural selection go hand in hand to make the theory of Darwinism complete. Without the observations of the voyage of the Beagle that Darwin took there would be no theory of evolution which would mean he would not have found the reason why speciation occurs and how natural selection has a key role for species to even exist or not. Over all I was not a big fan of Darwinism due to religious beliefs but I do believe there is a type of evolution that occurs that allows us to adapt and survive in the society we do now. Because I have taken the time to understand how Darwinism functions I have been able to accept and understand parts of it and apply it to everyday life. 3 BIBILIOGRAPHY Safran, Rebecca J. "Speciation: The Origin of New Species." Nature.com. Nature Publishing Group, n.d. Web. 17 Apr. 2013. <http://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/speciation-the-origin-of-newspecies-26230527>. Lennox, James. "Darwinism." (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Stanford University, 13 Aug. 2003. Web. 17 Apr. 2013. <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/darwinism/>. Belk, Colleen M., and Virginia Borden. Maier. Human Biology. SLCC ed. San Francisco: Benjamin Cummings, 2009. Print. 4