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Summary History of Biology - Lecture 3
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History of Biology - Lecture 3
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History of Biology – Lecture 3: Evolution21-02-18
Important names to remember:
Lamarck + Darwin
Change in nature and society: Is nature static or variable?
Until the end of the 18th c.: static nature, with species stable since creation.
Evidently, improving animal races through breeding was known, since domestication.
*Change was often seen as sudden and disastrous.
Problems for the static world view:
A. What are fossils?
B. How do species become extinct?
If species went extinct, how did this occur?
- Through disasters only?
- Through mass extinction?
- When and how?
C. How old is the world?
According to Bisshop James Ussher the earth was created on 23 October 4004 B.C.,
based on the Bible (1658).
Geology: increasing knowledge of strata formation led to controversies about earth’s
age.
But how did the earth change? Gradually or catastrophically?
How do strata develop?
Major controversy in geology:
Uniformitarianism vs. catastrophism:
Uniformiarianism:
The earth changes slowly, by the same, ‘uniform’ processes operating now as in the
past (very) old earth.
Catastrophism:
Dramatic changes by sudden, violent events young earth.
Predecessors of evolution:
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829):
- Impoverished French noble, botanist & physician in Paris.
- Student of Buffon, worked at the French national natural history museum.
- Head of Jardin du Roi, went on expeditions.
1802: co-invents term ‘biology’.
, Lamarcks principles:
- Variability of species: they change (including humans)
- Changes in environment affect organs and behavior.
o With an unknown mechanism, by which changes become hereditary.
Lamarckism:
Lamarck is ridiculed, because of a minor part of his theory that is not even his real
contribution to evolution.
Used by the Darwinians as an insult, until late in the 20 th c. Lamarck was always
made fun of.
Enormous societal changes – change in 19th c. thought:
Change from: thinking about past thinking about future which led to the
American + French revolution.
The world changes quickly
Lamarck renamed Jardin du Roi to Jardin des Plants, to avoid any link with royalism
scientists like Lamarck also lived with these changes.
- Change became very important in the 19th c., but there were also pessimists.
Charles Darwin (1809-1882):
*On the origin of species
Son of a wealthy physician father sends him to medical school (which Darwin
does not like) and then to becoming a minister, but Darwin is more interested in
nature, which his father won’t allow him.
Eventually, Darwin graduated in theology, but in the meantime eagerly collected
beetles.
Through his interest in nature, he befriended a botany professor, who recommended
him for an important expedition: The Beagle Trip.
Purposes of The Beagle Trip:
- Political
- Cartographical
- Mapping
- Exploring sea routes.
He becomes a uniformitarian, due to the discoveries he made;
*The Galapagos Islands:
Major source of inspiration for Darwin;
He found exotic animals and especially interesting variation among the islands.
Darwin’s finches.
Darwin continues the ‘taxonomical style’ the first ‘tree of life’, instead of ‘ladders’.
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