Download The Pattern of Evolution

Evolution of
Species
Special Creation
1. The Creation took place in one particular
location (The garden of Eden).
2. The creation was accomplished in one
particular time period (seven days).
3. The creation was directed and constructed
by God and therefore divine in nature.
1664 Archbishop James Ussher used Old
Testament genealogies to calculate that the earth
was precisely 5,668 years old.
• “Heaven and Earth,
Centre and substance
were made in the same
instant of time and
clouds full of water
and man were created
by the Trinity on the
26th of October 4004
B.C. at 9:00 in the
Morning.”
The Great Chain of Being
• The hierarchal order of God’s creations from the
highest to lowest of life forms.
– Example:
God
Angels
Man
Beast
Plants
• Species are unchanged since their creation, or
immutable, and that variation within each type is
strictly limited.
Special Creation’s
Statements of Fact
• Species were created independent of each
other
• They do not change through time
• The creation was recent.
Evidence of Change Through
Time
The Renaissance brought new
scientific enquire
• Biogeography:
• Geology:
The study of the distribution of plants
and animals around the world
The study of the earths crust in order
to understand its structure and origin
• Comparative Anatomy:
Comparing similarities and
differences in the body plans of
various biological organisms
Biogeography poses hard
questions for Special Creation
• If the creation of life occurred in one particular
geographical location, how did plants and animals cross
great oceans and mountain ranges to get to isolated areas
of the earth?
• If all life radiated out from a central location, why don’t
we find life dispersed evenly from that center? How is it
that we find groups of organisms only in specific areas of
the earth i.e.…Kangaroos only in Australia, Polar bears
found only in the Artic and Penguins in the Antarctic?
Insights concerning the age of the
earth arise from Geology
A.
The earth is very old
1. The theory of Uniformitarianism: The geological
processes that are currently shaping the earth today
are the same ones that have shaped it in the past.
- James Hutton and Charles Lyell
2. Radiometric dating, which uses the rate of
radioactive decay in rocks as a stopwatch,
convincingly dates the earth to 4.5 billion years old.
Geological insights cont.
B.
The fossil record details a history different than that
described in the Special creation
1. Since the conception of life on earth, many
organisms have gone extinct.
Extinctions are evidence that Earth’s flora and
fauna have changed through time.
2. The creation did not end 7000 years ago but is a
continual process leading to the continual rise of new
species adapting to their environment.
The law of Succession
3. Faunal Succession: Fossil record shows
that life developed from simple to
complex. The Older the geological
strata, the simpler the fossil structure
found in it are.
The law of Succession
• Fossils of marsupials in Australia were closely
related to the marsupials currently living in
Australia.
• Fossils in Argentina look nothing like the fossils in
Australia but instead look like the animals in
Argentina (ex. Glyptodonts and armadillos).
• Can the special creation explain this?
The law of Succession cont• Today’s species are
descended with
modification from
ancestors that lived in the
same region; it is to be
expected that they would
bear a stronger
resemblance to their
recent ancestors than to
their more distantly
related kin in other parts
of the world.
Geologic Time
Transitional Forms
• Species which are
intermediate in body
form between two
groups of organisms.
• Species that are
intermediate in time in
the fossil record.
Archaeopteryx
Comparative Anatomy
• A human arm, a whale
flipper, and a bat wing all
differ in size, shape and
function, yet they consist of
the same tissues and bones
arranged in the same
overall patterns on the
body.
• Why are animals that seem
so different and live in such
different habitats structured
so much alike ?
Homology
• “The organ in different animals under every
variety of form and function.” Richard Owen
• Structural homology
– The forelimbs of mammals that are structurally
very similar but functions vary differently.
– Analogous structures on the other hand are body
parts from organisms that are very distant
evolutionarily but have converged in response to
similar environmental presures.
• Developmental homology
Ontogeny
Comparative Anatomy Cont.
• Ontogeny begets Phylogeny
– Ontogeny is the study of the development of an embryo
through its various developmental stages
– Phylogeny is the study of the development of a species
through time
– The development of an embryo mimics the
development of that species through time
Molecular Homology
• All organisms studied to date use the same
nucleotide codons to specify the same amino
acids to be incorporated into proteins
• An enormous number of alternative codes is
theoretically possible, some of which work
just as well or better than the real code.
• There would be a distinct advantage if
organisms had their own code.
Shared Flaws
• On chromosome 17 the
gene for a protein called
PMP- 22 is flanked on
both sides by identical
sequences of DNA.
• The proximal CMT1A
repeat, near the gene for
PMP-22, is a duplication
of the distal repeat
• A genetic flaw
– Three copies = Charcot
Marie Tooth disease
– 1 copies palsies
Comparative Anatomy cont
• Vestigial organs
– Remnants of body parts which
no longer serve a function.
– Example, pelvic girdle bones
in snakes or tail bones in
humans
• The presence of vestigial
traits is inexplicable under
the Theory of Special
Creation.
Vestigial organs
• Other Examples
–
–
–
–
Mexican tetra
The brown Kiwi
Arrector pili
The digits in chicken
wings and feet
– Hind legs of whales
– Pseudogenes
New Ideas
• George Louis Leclerc,
Comte de Buffon
– Life to multiply faster than
its food supply
– Variation within species
existed and were heritable.
– Older earth to account for
the stratification seen in
geological layers.
– Forms could change to a
degree but not into different
species.
1707 - 1788
Organic life beneath the shoreless
waves
Was born and nurs'd in ocean's
pearly caves;
First forms minute, unseen by
spheric glass,
Move on the mud, or pierce the
watery mass;
These, as successive generations
bloom,
New powers acquire and larger
limbs assume;
Whence countless groups of
vegetation spring,
And breathing realms of fin and
feet and wing.
Erasmus Darwin. The Temple of
Nature. 1802
Erasmus Darwin
1731 -1802
Lamarck
• Fist to publicly state
his ideas of
evolutionary change.
• Acquired
Characteristics.
1744 - 1829
Philosophie Zoologique
• Underlying the whole was a 'tendency to
progression', a principle that Creation is in a
constant state of advancement. It was an innate
quality of nature that organisms constantly
'improved' by successive generation, too slowly to
be perceived but observable in the fossil record.
Mankind sat at the top of this chain of progression,
having passed through all the previous stages in
prehistory.
George Cuvier
• Demonstrate with
conclusive evidence that
extinction had occurred.
• Theory of catastrophism
which rigidly maintained
the fixity of species.
1769 - 1832
Charles Darwin
Natural selection
• All organisms have the ability to out reproduce their
natural resources. Thus, there is competition for limited
resources
• There is variation among individuals in every population.
Thus, some individuals within the population will compete
better for natural resources than others
• Those who compete best will live longer and have more
off-spring than those who can’t compete as well.
• Traits and genes which allow an organism to compete
better will be passed on and become more common in the
population. Thus the population evolves.
Thomas Huxley
• Nicknamed “Darwin’s
bulldog”
• Outspoken defender
and advocate for
Darwin's theory of
evolution by natural
selection.
• Famous debate with
Archbishop Samuel
Wilberforce
Richard Owen
• One of the foremost naturalist in English
history.
• Hunterian lecturer for the Royal college.
– Hunterian collection consisted of over
13,000 human and animal remains bought
by the crown.
– These were passed to the Royal College,
with the stipulation that the collection be
made available to the public by the
founding of a lecture series and a
museum.
– Lectures were attended by royalty and
many important figures in Victorian
England.
• Theory of archetype
• Coined the term dinosauria (instead of
Herpeton)
Richard Owen
• He was cold and imperious, and without
scruples
• His position and gifts as an anatomist
allowed him to get away with the most
barefaced dishonesties.
– Son
– Huxley’s position at the school of mines.
– Systematically took credit for discoveries
of others.
– Stole corpses and their parts.
– Robert Grant
– Gideon Mantell
– Channing Pearce. Royal Medal for his
paper on the extinct mollusk belemnite.
• Huxley finally had him voted off the
councils of the Zoological and Royal
Societies.
A gaunt and sinister villain in a Victorian
melodrama?
No, just Sir Richard Owen