Download Frantzer AP bio 12/31/12 DARWIN`S HISTORICAL REPORT

Frantzer
AP bio
12/31/12
DARWIN’S HISTORICAL REPORT ASSIGNMENT
Lamarck was a French scientist who had written a different explanation to
Darwin’s using the same data. He said that the history of life was like a ladder with
simple life forms at the bottom and the most complex ones at the top. He thought that
animals changed during their lifetime to their surroundings and that this gets passed on to
their young.
Darwin's finches are 14 different closely related species of finches Charles
Darwin discovered on the Galapagos Islands. Darwin's voyage on HMS Beagle, and the
finches in particular, are known to have influenced his thinking so that he would later
produce a basic theory of evolution by natural selection. Darwin reasoned that there had
to be a common ancestor. Darwin's finches look very similar; it is the variations in beak
structure which set them apart.
One of the aspects of Darwin’s theory of evolution is natural selection. Natural
selection is the gradual, non-random process by which biological traits become either
more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their
bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution. The term "natural selection" was popularized
by Charles Darwin, who intended it to be compared with artificial selection, what we now
call selective breeding.
Darwin is the first of the evolutionary biologists, the originator of the concept of
natural selection. His principal works, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural
Selection (1859) and The Descent of Man (1871) marked a new epoch. His works were
violently attacked and energetically defended, then; and, it seems, yet today.
The theory of evolution is no longer controversial within the scientific
community, but only in the public domain. To scientists, the experts who have researched
and tested the more-than-just-a-theory for 150 years, it is an accepted fact on which all of
biology is predicated. The reason it is controversial in the public domain is simple: it
contradicts some people's religious beliefs regarding creation. While the United States is
officially a secular country, the majority of people are Christian. Many, but not all,
Christians believe evolution detracts from God's role in creating life, while many others
have managed to reconcile their beliefs with modern science. But even in the face of
overwhelming evidence, some still insist upon special creation and the literal truth of
Genesis.