Did Darwin Do It All? Explanations of Evolution

EXPLORING THE ROOTS OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORY

Part 1.

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/evothought.html

Use the links in this section to learn about and briefly describe the background and scientific contribution of each of the following people:

1. Erasmus Darwin:

• one of the leading intellectuals of eighteenth  century England
• respected physician
• well known poet, philosopher, botanist, and naturalist
• talked about how competition and sexual selection could cause changes in species

    2. Jean Baptiste Lamarck

• theory of heredity "inheritance of acquired traits"
• acknowledge as a great zoologist
• acknowledged as a forerunner of evolution
• entered the Jesuit seminary at Amiens
• studied medicine and botany
• published a series of books

       

3. Georges Cuvier 

• created the comparative method of organismal biology
• established extinction of past lifeforms
• contributed an immense amount of research in vertebrate and invertebrate zoology and paleontology
• wrote&lectured on the history of science
• studied at the Carolinian Academy in Stuttgart
• did not believe in organic evolution

4. Thomas Malthus

• theory of natural selection
• political economist
• worried about what he saw as the decline of living conditions
• the overproduction of young
• the inability of resources to keep up with the rising human population
• the irresponsibility of the lower classes

Part 2.

http://whyfiles.org/125galapagos/index.html

Use the information from Sections 3 and 4 to answer the following questions:

1. What interesting evidence of geological change did Darwin observe while visiting the Galapagos?

• South America was rising from the ocean
• realized quakes come from the raised beaches he had seen in Patagonia
• ancient shorelines

2. What did Darwin learn about the Galapagos finches when he returned to England? What vital information had he neglected to record when he collected them?

Darwin learned that the finches in which the Galapagos finches were not of the same ancestors. He did not think of the geologic site and saw there could be a difference.

3. Describe the distribution pattern of Galapagos mockingbirds. What question did this raise in Darwin's mind?

Darwin saw many differences that happened in the finches. He thought to himself what and how could this happen? This was one of his first and most important thoughts that would help him improve his science of evolution.