Download Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin
1800-1865
I. Early influences
• A. Family
– 1. Father a minister
– 2. Early possible careers
– 3. Settled as a naturalist on the voyage of Beagle
B. Voyage of Beagle 1831-1836
• 1. 22years old
• 2. extent of voyage
• 3. influenced a lot by Galapagos
Islands
C. Galapagos islands
• 1. Finches
• Adaptive radiation
2. Galapagos tortoises
• a. Unique species for each island
• b. Identified by shape of carapace
• c. Inefficient
3. Galapagos Iguana
C. Thomas Malthus
• 1. economist
• 2. Malthusian Principle
• 3. Provided Darwin with the
idea of struggle
D. Artificial selection
• 1. definition
• 2. change is possible over time
II. Darwinian Evolutionary Theory
• A. Darwin was a wimp
• B. Alfred Wallace
C. Actual theory
• 1. Decent with modification
• 2. Like a branching tree
• 3. Change occurs slowly in the
appearance of the species as its
environment changes
• 4. Organisms living today are different
in appearance when compared to
ancestors
• 5. Living organisms share common
ancestors
D. Mechanism Natural Selection
• 1. variety exists in all populations
2. Populations have huge reproductive potentials
3. More young produced than environment can
support
4. Some phenotypes are more fit than others
• Dodo bird is an example
of species that go extinct
5. More fit in the population will leave more
offspring
6. Slow and gradual change over time
7. Things to think about
• a.
Individuals don’t evolve-populations are the simplest level of
biological organization that can evolve
• b. There is a difference between adaptations acquired during the
lifetime of an individual and those adaptations inherited from a parent
• c.
Evolution does not have an end point
• d. Man is not necessarily the high point or end point of evolutionary
change
• e. Better is only for a particular environment-if the environment
changes the “good” adaptation may no longer be advantageous
• f.
Evolution often leads to simplicity rather than complexity
E. Example of evolutionary change-Beagle
tongue
• 1. obvious function
• 2. thermoregulatory function
• 3. bell-shaped distribution
4. Environmental change-global warming
a. Which type of beagle has the advantage?
b. Short or long eared?
c. Why?
III. Social ramifications
• A. Social Darwinism and Spencer
B. Ideologies of Imperialism
•
•
•
•
1. Competition demonstrated that
some individuals were able to
manifest their inherent hardiness by
triumphing economically over
weaker individuals.
2. Just as it was abundantly clear
that there were fitter and stronger
individuals, the next step was to see
that nations were unequal.
3. Because it was obvious that
some nations were stronger and
fitter than others, so the European
argument ran, then Europeans were
better than other peoples.
4. Europeans saw it as their destiny
to rule the world
C. Racism and Darwinism
1.
2.
3.
The greatest influence in the sudden
development of racism in the 19th
century Europe was the
replacement of the Christian belief
that "God created all people equal"
by "Darwinism".
By suggesting that man had evolved
from more primitive creatures, and
that some races had evolved further
than others, it provided racism with
a scientific mask.
'Take away the Nordic Germans and
nothing remains but the dance of
apes' A quote of Adolf Hitler
IV. Data supporting evolutionary theory
• A. Embryological
similarities
• 1. evolution is a
conservative process
• 2. builds upon what is
already present
• 3. example of a house
B. Homologous structures
• 1. neck vertebrae
• 2. forelimbs
C. Convergent evolution
• 1.
• 2.
definition
homoplastic features
D. Coevolution
E. Vestigial structures
• 1. definition
• 2. examples
F. Fossil Record
• 1. missing links-Archeopteryx
2. Phylogenies
G. Comparative biochemistry