Science - Biodiv

• Plato - believed in two worlds; the real world and the illusionary world. Individual variation as the imperfect manifestation of ethos
• Aristotle - believed that all living organisms could be arranged in a "scale of nature" or Great Chain of Being
• Carolus Linnaeus - established the modern system of taxonomy in an attempt to discover order in the diversity of life
• Evolution - is the process by which modern organisms have descended from ancient organisms
• Scientific Theory - a well supported testable explanation of phenomena that have occurred in the natural world
• Charles Darwin - father of evolution; proposed a mechanism for evolution (natural selection); wrote the book "origin of the species"
• Ship that Darwin sailed - Beagle
• Darwin collected the preserved remains of ancient organisms, called fossils
• The Galapagos Island - the smallest, lowest islands were hot, dry, and nearly barren-hood island-sparse vegetation; the higher land had greater rainfall and a different assortment of plants and animals
• Animals in the Galapagos - land tortoises; darwin finches; blue-footed booby; marine iguanas
• Natural Selection - organisms that are best adapted to an environment survive and reproduce more than others
• NS four steps - overproduction; variation; competition; selection
• overproduction - each species produce more offsprings that can survive
• Variation - each individual has a unique combination of inherited traits; Adaptation is an inherited trait that increases an organism's chance of survival
• Competition - individuals compete for limited resources; fitness is the ability to survive long enough to reproduce
• selection - the individuals with the best traits/adaptations will survive and have the opportunity to pass on their traits
• Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet - first articulated theory of evolution
• Lamarck's theory of evolution - tendency towards perfection; use and disuse; inheritance of acquired traits
• James Hutton - theory of geological change; forces change earth's surface shape
• Charles Lyell - principles of geography; geographical features can be built up or torn down
• Georges Buffon - earth formed according to laws of physics and chemistry; life emerged as distinct types
• Thomas Malthus - 19th century English economist; if population grew (more babies born than die)
• Archbishop James Ussher - calculated that the world was precisely 5668 years old
• William Smith - different rock layers contain distinct fossils
• Georges Cuvier - fossils resemble but are not exactly the same as modern species
• Darwin's four theories of evolution - Evolution has occurred; the primary cause of evolutionary change is natural selection; splitting of a single species into two or more species has occurred; evolutionary change is gradual
• Evolution has occurred - species are not unchanging entities but evolve overtime. All species derive from very different species living in the past.
• The Primary cause of evolutionary change is natural selection - species change overtime because bearers of different traits have different probabilities of contributing offspring to the next generation
• splitting of a single species into two or more species has occurred - Darwin postulated that all life originated with only one or few species.
• evolutionary change is gradual - evolution occurs by gradual transformation of populations over long periods of time
• Elements of Evolution - competition; variation; heritability; iteration