Biology 1201A Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Carl Linnaeus, Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon, Transformational Theory
31 Oct 2017
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
History of evolution: what is a theory, organizing the historical development of evolutionary thought, road map for this course. What is a theory: common vernacular: an untested idea or opinion (speculation, scientific definition: an explanation of a set of natural phenomena, based upon proven or testable (hypothesis and observations) Early evolutionary thought: static classification and characterization (things aren"t changing, always the same. Aristotle 384-322 bce: ranking from simple to complex (scala natural, natural theology (1700"s) Le comte de buffon (1707-1788: these structures once served a purposed meaning that these animals must have changed since their creation, vestigial traits- the useless body parts we observe today. Jean baptiste lamark (1744-1829: species evolve to better fit their environment, use and disuse, inheritance of acquired trait (passing on certain traits) Georges cuvier (1769-1832: believed in the fixity of species, changes in fossil forms a result of repeated catastrophic events and new creations (e. g. floods wiping out certain species)
