Laying the groundwork I: The birth of evolutionary theory Darwin was not the first Historical constraints to thoughts about nature of life on earth 1. The earth is young • James Uscher: 4004 BCE • 9:00AM Sunday 23 October to be exact 2. Species were immutable • Species were created by God in exact forms 3. The value of science is to explain God’s creation • Conflict with the church could be very bad for one’s career • The rationalists began to set science in direct conflict with the church 4. Imprecise knowledge of species • Naming and organizing natural diversity was chaotic 1
Carolus Linnaeus: I will name them all • Carl van Linné (1707-1778), Swedish • proponent of “Natural theology” • set out to stop the chaos • binomial nomenclature • System Natura 1735 (142pp) Later editions (>2300pp) • rock star of field biologists • believed species were immutable Hutton: the world is older than you think • James Hutton (1726-1797), Scottish • did not like ad hoc explanations • did not like “Catastrophism” • champion of “ Uniformitarianism”: the present is the key to the past • the Earth must be very old • Hutton was a huge influence on Charles Lyell (1797-1875) who wrote highly influential books on geology 2
Lamarck: Species are not immutable • Jean Baptist Lamarck (1744-1829), French • first true museum systematist • important work on patterns in fossil record • first to put together two points: • the world was very old • species changed over this long time period • Lamarck most famous for getting the mechanism of evolution wrong (very sad) • Lamarck and Erasmus Darwin corresponded about evolution by acquired characteristics (Hmmm…) Cuvier: Fossils are real • Georges Cuvier (1769-1832), French • father of comparative anatomy • believed species were fixed. • very influential and unkind to Lamarck • convinced world that fossils were real • must have seen same patterns in fossil record as Lamark, seems he choose to ignore the implications 3
Malthus: Life is a struggle • Thomas Malthus (1766-1834), English • political economist • published “ Essays on the principle of population ” (1790) • Malthusian principle • presented many examples of life as a struggle • “profit of doom” • Doctrine of Eugenics echoes back to Malthus Young Darwin: I will voyage on the beagle • Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882), English • started life as orthodox member of church • naturalist on the Beagle • observed many differences between species among islands and between islands and mainland • read Lyell while on voyage • became a devout Uniformitarian; saw much evidence • read Malthus two years after return to England; He sees Malthus differently from all who came before • drew info from very different sources; saw beyond the orthodox 4
Older Darwin: I say species evolve by natural selection Ernst Mayr, in his book entitled “The Growth of Biological Thought” distils Darwin’s work to five key observations: 1. Species produce more offspring than survive to age of reproduction. This leads to a “struggle”. 2. Food and other such resources are limited ; more evidence for “struggle” . 3. Populations sizes surprisingly stable given the intensity of struggle among species. Must be a mechanism for stability. 4. Variation in the form of differences among individuals exists in every species. 5. Variation is heritable. Older Darwin: I say species evolve by natural selection From these observations, Darwin made three inferences: 1. Competition for finite resources ensures that many individuals within a species are eliminated because of inferior ability to survive and reproduce (low fitness). 2. Natural selection is the result of competition, where the more fit individuals outnumber the less fit individuals. 3. The characteristics favored by natural selection are passed on to succeeding generations because such characteristics are heritable. The consequences: all organisms must have descended, with modification, from common ancestors 5
Wallace: Hey, I say so too! • Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913), English • full credit for “co-discovery” of evolution by natural selection • had epiphany while delirious from an attack of malaria (1858) • had read Malthus as well, and came to same conclusion as Darwin Darwinian evolution fell into disrepute an languished until 1920’s Two problems that Darwin (and Wallace) could not solve: 1. Source of variation 2. Mechanism of inheritance • Fleming Jenkin demolished Darwin in an article in the North British Review (1876) • Jenkins introduced the problem of “blending” 6
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