Evolution and The Origins of Life

This set of flashcards covers essential vocabulary related to the theories of evolution, origins of life, and key principles of biological inheritance.

Big Bang

The huge explosion that marked the origin of the universe.

Panspermia

The hypothesis that life exists throughout the universe distributed by space dust, meteoroids, asteroids, comets, planetoids, or potentially by spacecraft.

Biogenesis

The principle that life arises from pre-existing life, proposed by Louis Pasteur.

Abiogenesis

The theory that life arose from non-living matter, supported by spontaneous generation theories.

Natural Selection

The process by which organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring.

Adaptive Radiation

The process in which organisms diversify rapidly into a variety of forms to adapt to different environments.

Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium

A principle stating that allele and genotype frequencies in a population will remain constant from generation to generation in the absence of evolutionary influences.

Mutation

A change in the DNA sequence of an organism, which can lead to variations in traits.

Divergent Evolution

The process of two or more related species becoming more dissimilar over time.

Convergent Evolution

The process where organisms from different evolutionary backgrounds develop similar characteristics.

Fossil Evidence

Remains or traces of organisms from the past, used to understand the history of life on Earth.