Darwin CHY4U. Brave New World Nature+of+Things/Darwin%27s+Brave+New+ World/ID/1316757054

Darwin

CHY4U

Brave New World

• http://www.cbc.ca/player/Shows/Shows/The+Nature+of+Things/Darwin%27s+Brave+New+World/ID/1316757054/

• CBC, The Nature of Things, Darwin’s Brave New World (45.04) [intro is 2:40]

Finches on Galapagos Islands

Darwin:“I never dreamed that islands, about fifty or sixty miles apart, and most them in sight of each other, formed of precisely the same rocks, placed under a quite similar climate, rising to a nearly equal height, would have been differently tenanted; but we shall soon see that this is the case.”

Jonathan Clements, Darwin’s Notebook: The Life, Times, and Discoveries of Charles Robert Darwin (London: Quid Publishing, 2009), 50.

“The most curious fact is the perfect gradation in the size of the beaks in the different species of Geospiza, from one as large as that of a hawfinch to that of a chaffinch… there are no less than six species with insensibly graduated beaks… Seeing this gradation and diversity of structure in one small, intimately related group of birds, one might really fancy that from an original paucity of birds in this archipelago, one species had been taken and modified for different ends.”

Jonathan Clements, Darwin’s Notebook: The Life, Times, and Discoveries of Charles Robert Darwin (London: Quid Publishing, 2009), 65.

Galapagos Online: Darwin’s Finches. N.d., http://www.galapagosonline.com/Galapagos_Natural_History/Birds_and_Animals/Birds/Darwins_Finches.html (Nov. 10, 2011)

PBS. Evolution Library. Adaptive Radiation – Darwin’s Finches. 2001. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/01/6/image_pop/l_016_02.html (Nov. 10, 2011)

Tree of Life

Ian Sample, Evolution: Charles Darwin Was Wrong About the Tree of Life, The Guardian, 2009, Jan. 21, http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/jan/21/charles-darwin-evolution-species-tree-life (Nov. 10, 2011).

Types of Change

University of California Berkeley, Museum of Paleontology, Understanding Evolution, N.d. http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/search/imagedetail.php?id=250&topic_id=&keywords= (April 17, 2013).

Biological Evolution“Biological evolution, simply put, is descent with modification. This definition encompasses small-scale evolution (changes in gene frequency in a population from one generation to the next) and large-scale evolution (the descent of different species from a common ancestor over many generations). Evolution helps us to understand the history of life.”

“Biological evolution is not simply a matter of change over time. Lots of things change over time: trees lose their leaves, mountain ranges rise and erode, but they aren't examples of biological evolution because they don't involve descent through genetic inheritance.”

“The central idea of biological evolution is that all life on Earth shares a common ancestor, just as you and your cousins share a common grandmother.”

Through the process of descent with modification, the common ancestor of life on Earth gave rise to the fantastic diversity that we see documented in the fossil record and around us today. Evolution means that we're all distant cousins: humans and oak trees, hummingbirds and whales.”

Finch Genes

University of California Berkeley, Museum of Paleontology, Understanding Evolution, N.d. http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/search/imagedetail.php?id=250&topic_id=&keywords= (April 17, 2013).

Social/Historical Relevance

• Darwin’s life and writings were primary sources for the study of the 19th century.

• Science was very popular at this time in western societies.– More practical at that time than during Scientific

Revolution because of the influence of the Industrial Revolution.

19th Century Scientific Advances

• Electron• Compound microscope• Pasteurization• Thermodynamics• Periodic table• [Zipper patent, paper clip]

Challenge To Traditional Thinking

Age of earth

Religious dogma

View of change, progress

Age of earth

Scientific thinking

View of change, progress

Giraffe

• http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/01/15/giraffe-necks-not-for-sex/