Darwinian Thought

Continued from Thursday, 18th September 2014

Still had essentialism
As Europe was colonizing and exploring, wealthy naturalists, started to observe things and
catalogued diversity.
Georges-Louis LECLERC

There are certain types of animals that are extremely similar to each other
But they were all slightly different according to their location
Different sizes, prey, locations, colour
It didnt make sense
Why didnt you just make the perfect cat and place it down at these different
places?
Why the variations?
Tried to explain the differences with respect to the Scala Naturae
Said that all animals were placed in one place then they moved around
In consuming the foods, the abiotic world affected the essence of the animal
The essence morphed and changed
Said for the first time that everything has changed and not the same
Founder of BIOGEOGRAPHY.

Erasmus DARWIN

As he is translating he makes observations on Linnaeuss catalogue

Doesnt believe the Churchs story of the Scala Naturae
But didnt want to get in trouble with them
Hence didnt publish a scientific article
Instead made a poem
Said that life came from the sea
Then animals came to land
There fins morphed into limbs
Things on the planet have had a gradual change.

CHALLENGING THAT EVERYTHING IS NOT THE SAME AS IT WAS WHEN LIFE BEGAN.
Georges CUVIER

Digging up fossils
Thought to be monsters of the past
Started to arrange the fossils
Saw a similarity between these and the present day animals
FATHER OF COMPARATIVE BIOLOGY
If everything that put on the planet perfect, then why did some of them die?
Theorized that there was a catastrophe that caused extinction
Explained that these were that did not make it to Noahs Ark

MORE EVIDENCE THAT THERE IS CHANGE.

Charles LYELL

FATHER OF GEOLOGY

As he observed the sediments that have fossilized in the Earth he saw that you see
different compositions in different places
Creates Stratigraphy
The organisms in similar layers are same
The organisms in different layers are different
There are no organisms in some layers
Therefore at one point in time there were no organisms on Earth
Knew that these sediments are laid very slowly
Hence the Earth is millions and millions of years
Hence what seems like a quick extinction (CUIVER) took in fact over millions of
years
Proposed the idea of UNIFORMATARIANISM.

ROCK CYCLE

2 types
Molten rock from the planet
From sedimentation in water
We know now Continental Drift (because of Magma).

CARBON CYCLE

The interface of the air and water exchange of CO2

This CO2 provides for food web
When CO2 dissolves in water
Carbonic acid is formed
Forms CaCO3
Insoluble
Precipitating in the bottom
Happens over millions of years
Says that this cannot happen over 6000 years
This reaction goes nuts when continents rise from the oceans
Rain erodes continents
Flood the minerals into oceans
Reaction pulls all CO2 from the atmosphere
We lose the warm greenhouse gas blanket
EARTH FREEZES.

CONTINENTAL DRIFT

Alfred

Vegner
Intrigued how similar plant/animals in Africa and South America
South America and Africa are like jigsaw pieces
Formed Pangaea

Monday, 22nd September 2014.

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck

inheritance of acquired traits (changes species)

coined transmutation of species synonym for change

environmental factors that change the appearance of the
organism are passed on from 1 generation to the next
explained the giraffe as that the giraffes neck was elongated
over its lifetime and this elongated neck was then passed onto
future generations
every organism starts off as an infusarium (single-celled
organism)
and this infusarium over time increases in complexity and the
environment influences this complexity
Doesnt know that in animals early on in the developmental stage
germ cells are set aside from somatic cells.
The germ cells (sperm egg) are the cells that have the heritable traits that are passed
from 1 generation to the next, so even if you have a unique somatic condition (mutation,
etc.) it would be unique to those somatic cells and different from the germ cells because
they are separated early on during the embryonic stage
STILL BELIEVES IN ESSENCE.

TRANSMUTATION of ESSENCE
Dramatic changes in the essence and not slowly
All of a sudden fish gave birth to Hippo because of transmutation in essence.
TRANSFORMATION:
FINALISM
Some kind of programming in the essence
Changes itself into more complex animals
Do not need environmental factors.
ENVIRONMENTAL
This is Lamarcks
Environmental factors change the essence.
WALLACE

Wallace was travelling in Indonesia

Observing diversity
Came up with the idea of natural selection
If a trait is heritable and can pass from generation to generation and the trait favours
reproduction then that trait will be prevalent in the next generation
Wallace knows that Darwin is working on it so sends him a manuscript
Darwin hasnt published yet (doesnt want to piss off the church and wants as much
evidence as he can)
The manuscript is sent to the Royal Society in London and is seen by Lyle who knows
Darwin
Lyle calls a symposium where both are identified as the founders natural selection
Forgotten in history because he didnt have a lot of data.

CHARLES DARWIN

From a wealthy family

HMS Beagle ship with commercial business in the world for 5 years
Lyle suggests to Darwin to go around the world and observe biology and diversity and
collect as many samples as he can

Married Emma Wedgewood whose family was also rich (made chinaware)
Spent his days looking for patterns and observing
Intellectual and has resources and freedom
Common ancestry with branching pattern
Origin of Species was a comprehensive/historical narrative that is accepted by the
physical sciences.

Darwins 5 Theories Didnt know the underlying cause of this and didnt say
anything about evolution or fittest.
1) No constancy of species:
Fossils Cuviers fossils
In Amber Need trees will sap that will fossilize
Permafrost Animals were frozen and DNA can be recovered
Rock Animals have been mineralized
A rare occurrence B/c there is a decomposition cycle
Fossils result from a break in this cycle and are found in rock bed
They didnt know about continental drift hence no longer hit-or-miss (because
the rock bed where the fossils were found moved around in the continents)
Now you can find fossils with some predictability
Evolution of Horse TRANSITION FORM
Climate change causes forests to give rise to grasslands
Animal roams into these and was able to use it as a food source
A lengthening of the limb
More efficient running
Causes the fusion of the bones causing the rise of hoof
Improvement of the molar to generate more efficient grinding of
cellulose b/c nutrients are locked inside cellulose
ARCHEOPTREYX
Had feathers and had a tail
No beak but had reptile like teeth
Hence feathers were common in reptiles
Birds are just highly specialized reptiles
PUIJILA
Transition Form
Origin of Seal
Predator animals from land going into water
Extinction
Cuviers extinction
Darwin
They disappeared b/c they werent the fittest organisms
So that morphology that appeared has disappeared
Transitional Forms
The missing link between 2 related types of fossils
2) Common Ancestry:
Homology
Common morphology of the limb
This common structure had been used for variety of things and hence
and changed
Another way to identify common ancestor.
Comparative embryology

Heckel said that you can see all every single embryological sequence repeats
(NOT TRUE)
The zygote of an animal when it has 4 cells the next cell division is always
though the equator of the cells
Only 2 ways you can stack 4 cells
round bottoms aligned with round tops
twist the round bottom b/w the grooves
Now there are 2 types of animals
The twisted one, one of the cells will form the mesoderm,
in the other group cells require contact between them
Now you can predict the developmental control system of the whole
organism.
Vestigial Structure
Goose bumps Fright (the hairs that stand makes them look bigger) or chill
(to create an air gap between the under hair that helps insulates us)
Nictating membrane For swimming underwater for protection from debris
and changed the optic property of the eye - allowed the correction of the
lens light has different optic property in water
Appendix NOT VESTIGIAL bacteria - high level of vascularization stimulus
of immune system for creating WBC for dealing with invading pathogens.
Molecule
Cytochrome C
ETC in mitochondria
in the beginning of eukaryotic cells
Krebss cycle
same enzymes found in all organisms (fungi, plants)
mitochondria arose and all eukaryotic cells
have that common ancestor
Can look at the amino acid build up and see changes and the
organisms.
DNA
able to put together evolutionary tree
LUCA
Darwinian branching pattern for every organism.

Gradual Changes
Multiplication of species
Natural selection
TYPES OF TAXONOMIES

The taxonomic tree should reflect the evolutionary history