Download 1. State the two major points Darwin made in The Origin of Species

Chapter 22 Reading Quiz
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Who wrote “On the Origin of Species”?
What branch of biology is concerned with
naming and classifying life?
What is the proposed mechanism for
evolution?
What is the geographic distribution of a
species known as?
In what types of rocks are fossils
typically found?
1. State the two major points Darwin made in The
Origin of Species concerning the Earth’s biota.
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2.
Species evolved from ancestral species
that were not specially created
Natural selection is a mechanism that
could result in this evolutionary change 
2. Compare and contrast Plato’s philosophy of
idealism and Aristotle’s scala naturae.
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Plato – idealism/essentialism: believed
that there were two coexisting worlds 
an ideal, eternal, real world and an
illusionary imperfect world that humans
perceive with their senses
Aristotle – beliefs also excluded evolution
- recognized that organisms vary from
simple to complex and believed that they
could be placed on a scale of increasing
complexity (scala naturae)
- species fixed and didn’t evolve 
3. Describe Carolus Linnaeus’ contribution to
Darwin’s theory of evolution.
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1707 – 1778; Swedish; sought order in the
diversity of life
Father of taxonomy (naming and classifying
organisms)
- developed binomial nomenclature
- hierarchy of taxonomic categories
- did NOT imply evolutionary relationships
- believed that species were permanent
creations 
4. Describe Georges Cuvier’s contribution to
paleontology.
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Cuvier founded the study of fossils or
“paleontology”
Realized life’s history was recorded in
fossil-containing strata and documented
succession
Understood that extinction had been a
common occurrence in the history of life
science as new species appeared and others
disappeared 
5. Explain how Cuvier and his followers used the
concept of catastrophism to oppose evolution.
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Catastrophism  theory that major
changes in the earth’s crust are the result
of catastrophic events rather than from
gradual processes of change
Proposed that there were periodic
localized catastrophes resulted in mass
extinctions
After local flora and fauna had become
extinct, the region would be repopulated by
foreign species 
6. Explain how the principle of gradualism and
Charles Lyell’s theory of uniformitarianism
influenced Darwin’s ideas about evolution.
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Gradualism  principle that profound
change is the cumulative product of slow,
continuous processes
Uniformitarianism  theory that geological
processes are uniform and have operated
from the origin of the earth to the present
Darwin rejected uniformitarianism, but was
influenced by that the earth must be
ancient and slow and subtle processes
persist and cause substantial change 
7. Describe Jean Baptiste Lamarck’s model
for how adaptations evolve.
…mechanism by which specific adaptations evolve:
1.
Use & disuse  those body organs used
extensively to cope with environment become
larger and stronger while those not used
deteriorate
2.
Inheritance of acquired characteristics: the
modifications an organism acquired during its
lifetime could be passed along to its offspring
- was incorrect, yet evolution is the best
explanation and the earth is ancient
- adaptation to the environment is a primary
product of evolution 
8. Describe how Charles Darwin used his
observations from the voyage of the HMS Beagle to
formulate and support his theory of evolution.
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All species have such great potential fertility
that their population size would increase
exponentially is all individuals that are born
reproduced successfully
Populations tend to remain stable in size, except
for seasonal fluctuations
Environmental resources are limited
Individuals of a population vary extensively in
their characteristics; no two are alike
Much of this variation is heritable; survival is
not random – unequal ability 
9. Describe how Alfred Russel Wallace
influenced Charles Darwin.
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Wallace was a specimen collector in the
East Indies and sent a letter that detailed
a theory of natural selection almost
identical to Darwin’s
Darwin evaluated the theory and sent it to
publication
Darwin is considered the main author of
the idea because he developed and
supported natural selection much more
extensively than Wallace 
10. Explain what Darwin meant by the principle of
common descent and “descent with modification”.
Principle of common descent 
closely related animals share a recent
common ancestor, etc.
 Descent with modification 
perception that there is a unity in life
with all organisms related through
descent as diverse adaptations
accumulate through years 
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11. Explain what evidence convinced Darwin
that species change over time.
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Perceived from studying the 14 types of
finches from the Galapagos that the origin
of a new species and adaptation were
closely related processes, as new species
could arise from an ancestral population by
gradually accumulating adaptations to a
different environment
Example: isolated populations of a species
- food sources 
12. State, in your own words, three inferences
Darwin made from his observations, which led him to
propose natural selection as mechanism for
evolutionary change.
1.
2.
3.
Production of more individuals than the environment can
support leads to a struggle for existence among individuals
of a population, with only a fraction of offspring surviving
each generation
Survival in the struggle for existence is not random but
depends in part on the hereditary constitution of the
surviving individuals
The unequal ability of individuals to survive and reproduce
will lead to a gradual change in a population with favorable
characteristics accumulating over generations 
13. Explain why variation was so important to
Darwin’s theory.
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Variation and overproduction in populations
make natural selection possible
- the end product of natural selection is
adaptation of organisms to their
environments
- variations in a population arise by chance,
but natural selection is not a chance
phenomenon 
14. Explain how Reverend Thomas Malthus’
essay influenced Charles Darwin.
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Already aware of the struggle for
existence caused by overproduction
The capacity for overproduction is common
to all species, and only a fraction of new
individuals complete development and leave
offspring of their own; the rest die or are
unable to reproduce 
15. Distinguish between artificial selection
and natural selection.
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Natural selection  variation and overproduction
in populations – the most fit individuals pass on
their genes; results from environmental editing
Artificial selection  breeding of domesticated
plants and animals have modified species
Conclusion  if so much change is achieved by
artificial selection in a short period of time
(humans), natural selection should be capable over
hundreds of thousands of years 
16. Explain why the population is the smallest
unit that can evolve.
Population = a group of interbreeding
individuals belonging to a particular species
and sharing a common geographic area
 Evolution can only be measured as change
in relative proportions of variations in a
population over several generations 
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17. Using some examples, explain how natural
selection results in evolutionary change.
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Finch beaks on the Galapagos
- average beak depth oscillates with rainfall
- natural selection is situational
Butterfly reproduction
- they choose different plants depending on where
they were laid
Antibiotic resistance in bacteria
Body size of guppies exposed to different
predators 
18. Explain why the emergence of population genetics
was an important turning point for evolutionary
theory.
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Natural selection is a consequence of interactions
between individual organisms and their
environment but INDIVIDUALS do NOT evolve
- acquired characteristics are not inherited
Evolutionists must distinguish between adaptations
an organism acquires during it’s lifetime and those
inherited adaptations that evolve in a population
over many generations as a result of natural
selection 
19. Describe the lines of evidence Charles Darwin
used to support the principle of common descent.
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Biogeography – the geographical distribution of species
Fossil record – appearance of branches in the phylogenetic
tree
Comparative anatomy – anatomical similarities among
species grouped in the same taxonomic category are a
reflection of their common descent
Comparative embryology – closely related organisms go
through similar stages in their embryonic development
Theory  “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” the
embryonic development of an individual organism is a
replay of the evolutionary history of the species
Molecular biology – an organism’s hereditary background is
reflected in its genes and their protein products
- the closer two species are taxonomically, the higher the
% DNA in common 
20. Describe how molecular biology can be used to
study the evolutionary relationships among
organisms.
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Closely related species have proteins of
similar amino acid sequences (resulting
from inherited genes)
Substantiated Darwin’s idea that all forms
of life are related to some extent through
branching descent from the earliest
organisms 
21. Explain the problem with the statement
that Darwinism is “just a theory”.
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Flawed because of:
1. Modern species evolved from ancestral
forms
2. The mechanism for evolution is natural
selection ( Darwin’s two claims)
That species EVOLVE (change over time) is
FACT, the mechanism (how this occurs) is
THEORY 
22. Distinguish between the scientific and colloquial
use of the word “theory”.
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In science, “theory” is very different from
the colloquial use of the word, which comes
closer to what scientists mean by a
hypothesis or educated guess
Unifying concepts do not become scientific
theories unless their predictions stand up
to thorough and continuous testing by
experiment and observation 