BOTANY 400 - Lecture Exam 2

Thomas Burnet

• 1681

• Typical Pre-18th Century View of Earth, its Changes, & Truth

• Wrote The Theory of the Earth

• Believed finding the Truths of the Natural World was respecting God’s Truth

Jean Baptiste Lamarck

• 1744 to 1829

• Author of Zologische Philosophie

• Early Evolutionary Thought of “Ladder Thinking”

• Used a Scalae Naturae or Ladder Model

• Eventually used a Tree Model

Lamarck’s Ladder

• Continuum between Physical & Biological World

• Transmutation: Life progresses Upward due to Internal Drive towards Perfection

• Current Primitive Organisms due to Constant Spontaneous Generation of New Life

• Inheritance of Acquired Characters leads to Change

• Hierarchy of Fourteen Levels

Georges Cuvier

• Critic of Jean Lamarck

• Argued there is No One Linear Ladder

• Led to Creation of Lamarck’s Tree

Lamarck’s Tree

• Two Lines of Spontaneous Generation with Subsequent Branching

• Branching as Fundamental Pattern of Evolution in 1815

• Some Odd Branches connecting Very Different Groups of Animals

Robert Chambers

• 1844

• Author of Vestiges

  • Only Pre-Darwin “Evolution” Book in English in 1840s & 1850s

• Began setting Acceptance of Evolution & Origin of Species

• Denied Special Creation for Each Species

  • Received Criticism from Biblical Scholar Bosanquet

Charles Darwin

• 1859

• Formulation of Evolutionary Theory

• Refers to Evolution as “Descent with Modification”

• Used Tree-Thinking

• Author of Origin of Species 1859

The Three Main Claims of Darwinian Evolution

• Descent: Living Species are Related by Common Ancestry

• Change through Time occurs not at the Organism Level but at the Population Level

• Modification: Main Cause of Adaptive Evolution is Natural Selection

Definition of Evolution

• Change of Genetic Materials

  • Genotype: DNA, Genes, Chromosomes, Genomes

• Change in Genotype leading to Change in Physical Attributes

  • Phenotype: Morphology & Physiology

• Occurs within & among Populations of Species through Time & Space

Evidence for Evolution

• Classification & Hierarchical Distribution of Traits

• Homology & Vestigial Structures

• Fossil Record & Biogeography

• Variation Among Populations & Speciation

• Agreement between Gene Trees