The History of Evolution

• who proposed the first hypothesis of where life came from?

  Aristotle
• what was Aristotle's first hypothesis for where life comes from?

  spontaneous generation
• who carried out experimental tests to test the spontaneous generation of life hypothesis?

  Francesco Redi
• how did Fransesco Redi test the spontaneous generation of life idea?

  he compared meat in a covered jar and an uncovered jar
• what did Fransesco Redi find when testing the spontaneous generation of life idea?

  only the open jar had maggots and flies as flies only appeared from the meat which flies had previously visited and laid eggs on
• did Francesco Redi reject or accept the spontaneous generation of life hypothesis?

  reject
• who proposed the theory of natural selection as an origin for species?

  Charles Darwin
• what is Charles Darwin best known for?

  his book on the origin of species by means of natural selection
• what does the origin of species by means of natural selection theory suggest?

  biological evolution is a gradual change from previous life to the life that we see now
• who came up with the same ideas of natural selection independently from Charles Darwin?

  Alfred Russel Wallace
• what are the four key points of evolution?

  variation, heritable traits, competition and selection
• what does evolution result in?

  adaptation and changes in allele frequency
• where did Darwin go to carry out his own observations?

  beagle voyages to the Galapagos islands
• what animal did Darwin focus his attention on during his voyage?

  finches
• what was the variation see in the finches beaks?

  some where long and thin while some were short and wide
• what did Darwin conclude caused the beak morphology in the finches?

  selection pressures due to food availability
• what had finches with short wide beaks been doing?

  cracking nuts
• what had the finches with long thin beaks been doing?

  picking insects out of holes
• what was the main driving factor holding Darwin and his ideas back?

  religious bodies - creation myths were generally accepted and the church was very powerful
• what did Charles Lyell propose?

  that the earth was millions of years old, rather than only 6000 years old as the bible suggests, meaning enough time had passed for Darwin's ideas to be viable
• who proposed that the earth was actually millions of years old rather than 6000 years old like the bible suggests?

  Charles Lyell
• what did Carl Linnaeus create?

  the binomial classification system
• why was Carl Linnaeus' classification system important to Charles Darwin's ideas?

  it suggested the hierarchal process - organising organisms into groups derived from common ancestors
• what was the real problem Darwin was unable to solve in his life time?

  the mechanism for heritability was unknown
• who created the binomial classification system that we still use today?

  Carl Linnaeus
• what is Neo-darwinism?

  Darwin with genetics
• whos experiments investigated the inheritance of characteristics in peas?

  Gregor Mendel
• which two traits did Gregor Mendel investigate in peas?

  wrinkled and smooth
• who discovered the double helix structure of DNA which allows for replication?

  Watson and Crick
• who described that selection processes work at the level of the individual rather than a species or group as a whole?

  George Williams