What do you think of when you hear the word
“EVOLUTION”
Science? Animals?
Change? Humans?
Charles
Darwin?
Religion?
Fossils?
Survival?
Extinction?
WHAT IS EVOLUTION?
• One of the respected biological definitions is: “in the broadest
sense evolution is merely change, and so galaxies, languages
and political systems all evolve (change).
• Biological evolution is change in the properties of the
populations of organisms (not organisms themselves) and it
exceeds the life time of a single individual” (Douglas J.
Futuyma’s Evolutionary Biology 1986).
Early Concepts of
Evolution: Jean
Baptiste Lamarck
Lamarck’s Theory of Evolution
•Tendency toward perfection
•Use and disuse
•Inheritance of acquired traits
• In 1809 Lamarck proposed that all living things were endowed
with a vital force that drove them to change toward a greater
complexity over time.
• He also thought that organisms have an innate drive for
perfection.
• They practice (use or disuse) their organs and this results in
changes in those organs.
• Lamarck thought that these changes could be transmitted to
following generations.
• He suggested that the long neck of the giraffe
developed when a short-necked ancestor
began browsing on the leaves of trees instead
of eating grass.
• He speculated that the ancestral giraffe, by
reaching up, stretched and elongated its neck.
• Its offspring inherited the longer neck, which
stretched still further.
• This process was supposed to have been
repeated over many generations and formed
the long neck of modern giraffes.
• Similarly the disused organs will reduce and
disappear in the same way.
• For example, we have ear muscles which can not be used to move
our ears actively. Lamarck thought that we had been able to move our
ears. Because we did not use them for a long time, over generations
they finally became reduced and non-functional.
• According to Lamarck if a man developed strong muscles by training,
his son would also have strong muscles and improve them further.
• Weissman cut the tails off mice and repeated this experiment for over
20 gen erations to test Lamarck's hypothesis, but latter offspring still
had a tail.
• The Lamarckian hypothesis is based on Modifications, which
are the anatomical and physiological changes of mature
organisms.
• These changes can not be inherited by offspring, that's why
they are not evolutionary.
• Such an idea was excusable at Lamarck's time, because
genetics was not known, the cell was not known, and no
molecular biology provided data for correct explanations.
Cuvier proposed the theory of
"Catastrophism".
• He thought that "…a vast supply of species was
cre ated in the beginning. All of these species
reproduced successfully, but successive
catastrophes (like Noah's flood) produced the
layers of rocks we know and destroyed many
species. The fossils we find in rock layers were
produced by these catastrophes. Today's flora
and fauna are what remained from those
disturbances".
• https://youtu.be/KNimldhXd5o?si=cLGWRHxOl7_VnvkS
