Chapter 13
Evolution
The concept that living things have changed over time
Not a new concept
Lucretius a Roman philosopher
Lamarck
1859 Darwin publishes “On the Origin of Species bythe Means of Natural Selection”
Charles Darwin
Son of a doctor
Medical School drop-out
Went to CambridgeUniversity and got atheology degree
1831 he traveled with theHMS Beagle on a mission,as the ship naturalist, tomap the coast of SouthAmerica
Stopped off on theGalapagos Islands
Darwin’s Observations
He found fossils of extinct animals that looked similarto modern species, but no long exist
Noted different species of animals inhabiting differentislands
He returned after 5 years on the Beagle but did notpublish for more than 10 years
He was troubled
After many years of observations and revisiting hisvoyage data he proposed the mechanism of evolution
Darwin’s Theory
Populations are in competition for resources
Most species produce many offspring in a lifetime
A limited number of them will survive and reproduce
He concluded that the individuals best adapted totheir environment will survive and reproduce
Natural Selection
Species have accumulated adaptations and may havechanged greatly from the parent population
New species?