Upgrade to remove ads
Only $35.99/year

Darwin - Week 3

Terms in this set (32)

testable, verifiable
For a theory to be considered scientific, it must be _____ and make _______ predictions.
Paley's argument
if we come upon a watch we would infer that the watch must have had a maker who comprehended its construction and designed its use. We would infer this due to its complexity.
the six components of Darwinism
evolution, gradualism, speciation, common ancestry, natural selection, nonselective mechanisms of evolutionary change
evolution
a species undergoes change over time
gradualism
the theory that evolution occurs slowly but steadily
speciation
the formation of new and distinct species in the course of evolution
common ancestry
a group of organisms share common descent if they have a common ancestor
natural selection
a process in which individuals that have certain inherited traits tend to survive and reproduce at higher rates than other individuals because of those traits.
nonselective mechanisms
changes can occur by chance
False - it produces the fitter.
Natural selection produces the fittest. True or False?
Carl Linnaeus
"Father of Taxonomy"; established his classification of living things; famous for animal naming system of binomial nomenclature
scientific theory
a statement of what are held to be the general laws, principles, or causes of something known or observed
retrodictions
facts and data that aren't necessarily predicted by the theory of evolution but make sense only in light of the theory of evolution
True
Over the first 80 percent of history of life, all species were soft-bodied.
principle of superposition
when artifacts are found in rock or earth that is layered, the deeper layers hold the older artifacts.
radiometric dating
the process of measuring the absolute age of geologic material by measuring the concentrations of radioactive isotopes and their decay products
4,600 million
Life arose on earth ______ years ago.
half-life
length of time required for half of the radioactive atoms in a sample to decay
Globortotalia conoidea
A species of marine foraminiferan which developed more whorl chambers in its shell over an eight-million year period
microevolution
evolutionary change within a species or small group of organisms, especially over a short period
macroevolution
large-scale evolutionary changes that take place over long periods of time
missing link
a gap in the fossil record which would demonstate speciation
Tiktaalik roseae
scaly fossil fish found in Canadian arctic; transitional form between fish and amphibians and probably a relative of the ancestor of modern tetrapods
tetrapods
vertebrate animals having four feet, legs or leglike appendages
theropods
a group of relatively small, bipedal, carnivorous dinosaurs.
Archaeopteryx lithographica
an extinct bird which shows an evolutionary transition between ancestral dinosaurs and modern birds
Sinornithosaurus millenii
A fossil of a feathered theropod dinosaur found in China
Mei long
"soundly sleeping dragon", found fossilized in sleeping position, sleep posture identical to modern birds, more evidence dinosaurs were warm-blooded, more links between dinosaurs and birds
tree down theory
the evolutionary theory that the first birds evolved to fly safely to the ground
ground up theory
the evolutionary theory that birds evolved to fly up off the ground
Haikouella lanceolata
A 530-million-year-old fossil found in China resembling a small eel with a head, brain, and heart. This chordate likely gave rise to all vertebrates, including humans.
"Fossil rabbits in the Precambrian!"
Biologist JBS Haldane's response to "What would disprove evolution?"
Sets found in the same folder