BIO 140: Historical and Philosophical Foundations of Evolutionary Science PDF

BIO 140: Historical and Philosophical Foundations of Evolutionary Science 1st Semester, 2024-2025 EVOLUTION BEFORE DARWIN AND WALLACE - Change through time ANAXIMANDER FUTUY...

BIO 140: Historical and Philosophical Foundations of Evolutionary Science 1st Semester, 2024-2025 EVOLUTION BEFORE DARWIN AND WALLACE - Change through time ANAXIMANDER FUTUYMA (2009) - “Biological kinds can change.” - “…change in the properties of groups of PLATO organisms over the course of generations.” Essentialism RIDLEY (2004) - Variations in nature are accidental deviations - “…change in the form and behavior of organisms from an idealized form (essence) of that object. between generations.” ARISTOTLE HALL & HALLGRIMSSON (2008) Immutability / Fixity of species - “…change in the heritable traits of biological - Each species had been created with fixed populations over successive generations.” properties and do not evolve MAYR (2001) - Perfectly adapted to their environment - “Evolution is best understood as the genetic Scala Naturae turnover of the individuals of every population from generation to generation - “scale of nature” - Organisms are arranged in a hierarchy in order of COYNE (2009) “perfection” and increasing complexity - “Life on Earth evolved gradually beginning with THOMAS AQUINAS one primitive species—perhaps a self-replicating molecule—that lived more than 3.5 billion years - Further developed Scala Naturae into The Great ago; it then branched out over time, throwing off Chain of Being many new and diverse species; and the CARL VON LINNE / CAROLUS LINNAEUS mechanism for most (but not all) of evolutionary - Established the framework for modern change is natural selection.” classification (called Linnean classification) in his 6 COMPONENTS OF COYNE’S DEFINITION work Systema Naturae 1. Evolution - Binomial nomenclature (Taxonomy) 2. Gradualism JAMES HUTTON 3. Speciation 4. Common ancestry Gradualism 5. Natural selection - Geologic processes occur at a slow rate that they 6. Non-selective mechanisms are not readily perceived APPLICATIONS OF EVOLUTION CHARLES LYELL - Understanding bacterial and viral resistance Uniformitarianism - Understanding human diseases - Improving domesticates - “the same natural laws and processes that - Conserving wildlife operate in the universe now have always - Understanding human behavior operated in the universe in the past and apply everywhere in the universe” MJ KAGAOAN | 1 BIO 140: Historical and Philosophical Foundations of Evolutionary Science 1st Semester, 2024-2025 JEAN BAPTISTE DE LAMARCK o Finches varying beak morphologies - “an innate life force drove species to become o Tortoises varying carapaces more complex over time, advancing up a linear 1836 - Beagle reaches Australia ladder of complexity related to the great chain of - Two creatures at work? being.” - Organisms seen only in Australia; Some Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics organisms not found in Australia 1836, - The HMS Beagle back in England WILLIAM PALEY Oct 2 - Compared God to a watchmaker; the existence of 1837 - Speculated on branching descent of well-adapted organisms and their intricate species features surely implied a conscious, celestial - Species could have come from a common ancestor designer 1859 - On the Origin of Species by Means of DURING DARWIN AND WALLACE Natural Selection - The Darwin-Wallace Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection 2 Major Themes DURING DARWIN AND WALLACE 1. Descent with Modification CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN 2. Natural Selection – a variational theory of change - Had a Christian upbringing, but were surrounded by freethinkers in the family “If variations useful to any organic being even occur, - Attempted to study medicine but neglected it assuredly individuals thus characterized will have the (1825) best chance of being preserved in the struggle for life, - Studied BA at Cambridge; Passionately collected and from the strong principle of inheritance, these will beatles (1827) tend to produce offspring similarly characterized.” Darwin and the Voyage of the Beagle (1831-1836) ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE - Joined the crew of the HMS Beagle to be a - Avid reader: companion to the captain as well as a naturalist o An essay on the Principle of Population by - Darwin amused himself by reading Charles Lyell’s Thomas Malthus Principles of Geology and by catching and o Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin observing planktons o principles of Geology o Vestiges of the Natural Selection 1832 - Cape verde: found white bands in high volcanic cliffs containing shells and 1st Expedition: Brazilian Amazon (1848) corals 1848 - Found evidence of life before - Exposed fossils of great mammals in - Voyaged to Brazilian Amazon with Henry Walter Punta Alta, Argentina Bates 1835 - Experiences 8.5 earthquake in Chile - Shipwreck going home - Theorized on the formation of atolls (a 1852 chain of islands formed of corals) - Beagle reached Galapagos islands; - On the Monkeys of the Amazon observed different variations in o Geographic barriers separate closely different islands related species MJ KAGAOAN | 2 BIO 140: Historical and Philosophical Foundations of Evolutionary Science 1st Semester, 2024-2025 2nd Expedition: Malayan Archipelago Expedition HOW IS VARIATION MAINTAINED? (1854-1862) THEORY OF BLENDING INHERITANCE - Wallace was a redundant collector - Offspring are often intermediate between their o Almost the same but have slight parents in features differences - Characteristics are inherited like fluids (eg. o “diversity among species may not always Different colors of paint) fit neatly inside boxes” - White x red = pink - Continuously highlights variation - Pink x pink = pink; not white or red; variation Sarawak Law decreases - Similar species live close to each other THEORY OF PARTICULATE INHERITANCE - In the paper of Gregor Mendel in 1865 Wallace line - Inheritance is not based on blending fluids, but on - Marks the most dramatic boundary of faunal particles that pass unaltered from generation to distribution on Earth generation—so that variation can persist - The concept of “mutation” in such particles (later Darwinism (1889) called genes) developed only after 1900 - Main book on natural selection POST-DARWINIAN (AND WALLACE) TRANSFORMATIONAL (LAMARCK) VS. NEO-LAMARCKISM VARIATIONAL (DARWIN-WALLACE) - Includes several theories based on the old idea of EVOLUTION inheritance of modifications acquired during an TRANSFORMATIONAL EVOLUTION organism’s lifetime - Individuals are altered during their lifetimes ORTHOGENESIS - Progenies are born with these alteration - “straight-line evolution” - Variation that arises is directed toward fixed goals, so that a species evolves in a predetermined direction without the aid of natural selection MUTATIONISM - Discretely different new phenotypes can arise by VARIATIONAL EVOLUTION mutation - Hereditarily different forms at the beginning are - Mutant forms constituted new species, thus, not transformed, but instead differ in survival and natural selection was not necessary to account for reproductive rates; so that their proportions the origin of species change from one generation to another - By Hugo de Vries, Thomas Hunt Morgan, and Richard Goldschmidt MJ KAGAOAN | 3