Natural Selection The Mechanism to Explain How Evolution Works

Who was Charles Darwin? (1809 – 1882) 1. British Naturalist – from a wealthy family, well educated, trained in theology 2. H.M.S. Beagle: at age 22 he sailed the world for 5 years as the ships naturalist (instead of getting a real job like his family would have preferred.) 3. Credited with the “Principles of Natural Selection as the mechanism for evolution”

Who was Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck? (1744 – 1829) French naturalist who came up with the idea of “Acquired Characteristics” to explain how evolution works.

How do the Ideas of Lamarck and Darwin compare? both were trained naturalists both believed in evolution: that species change over time

Lamarck Organisms acquire traits they need to survive and then pass those traits to their offspring. Organisms naturally vary or differ and the strongest survive, passing on those traits to their offspring. Darwin

Darwin’s Travels: At age 22 he set sail on the HMS Beagle for 5 years. Explored the South American coast. On his travels he saw an amazing diversity of life and began to formulate his theory of natural selection. His time in the Galapagos Islands are most famed for showing diversity. Fossils he found in South America were also very important to his theory.

Farmers Breed animals and plants to get certain traits in their livestock and crops, called artificial selection.

Robert Malthus (1766 – 1834) An economist. Wrote about industrialized society and it’s plights. Many, many people were moving to cities and there were many problems as a result. “There is an overproduction of offspring” (used to be a good thing on the farm) “…not enough resources to go around” (not growing their own food, cutting own firewood, etc)

James Hutton (1726 – 1797) & Sir Charles Lyell (1797 – 1875) Geologists. Examined rock layers in England and across the Channel in France and then figured out that the world was WAY older than the church taught. Fossils of extinct species from deep buried layers supported this. Faunal Succession

Alfred Wallace (1823 – 1913) Hard working field naturalist who came up with the Principles of Natural Selection on his own while doing fieldwork in Malaysia and Indonesia. Wrote to Darwin, someone he looked up to, and told him his theory. Darwin sat on Wallace’s work while finishing up his own theory and presented it as all his own. Wallace was too busy working out in the jungles half way around the world to defend himself.