BIOL 3142 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: North Island Brown Kiwi, Greenish Warbler, Ball Python
25 Feb 2015
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8:22 pm two competing models of the history of life on earth. The first model is the theory of special creation. In this view, species are immutable unchanged since their origin and variation among individuals is limited. All species were created separately and are thus genealogically unrelated to each other. In the traditional version of special creation, the earth and its living creatures are young with a beginning as recent as 6,000 years ago. As expressed by john ray (1686), the first scientist to give a biological definition of species, one species never springs from the seed of another. The theory of descent with modification includes five elements missing from special creation. First, species are not immutable, but change through time. Second, lineages split and diverge, thereby increasing the number of species. Third, over long periods of time, novel forms of life can derive from earlier forms. This kind of dramatic change over time is called macroevolution.
