1. Introduction and Chapter 1: Origins of Evolutionary Thought

2. Key Terms Primate: member of the mammalian order Primates, including prosimians, monkeys, apes, and humans, defined by a suite of anatomical and behavioral traits. Evolution: a change in the frequency of a gene or trait in a population over multiple generations. Biological/Physical Anthropology: the study of humans as biological organisms, considered in an evolutionary framework. “Biologically anthropology is particularly concerned with the evolutionary transformation that occurred over the past 6 million years, as an ape-like primate began to walk on two legs and became something different: a hominin – a member of the primate family Hominadae, distinguished by bipedal posture and, in more recently evolved species, a large brain.

4. Anthropology and the 4 fields

5. The Scope of Biological Anthropology Paleoanthropology: the study of the fossil record of ancestral humans and their primate kin. Osteology: the study of the skeleton. Paleopathology: the study of diseases in ancestral human populations. Bioarchaeology: the study of human remains in an archeological context. Forensic anthropology: the study of human remains applied to a legal context. Primatology: the study of the nonhuman primates and their anatomy, genetics, behavior, and ecology.

6. Paleoanthropology

7. Osteology

8. Paleopathology

9. Bioarcheaology

10. Forensic Anthropology

11. Primatology

12. Human Biology

13. Chapter 1: Origins of Evolutionary Thought

14. Religion?

15. Scientific Method

16. Importance of Deductive Reasoning Science is always changing and correcting itself. We set up experiments that are falsifiable. How many scientific laws are there?

17. Progression of Science Aristotle’s Great Chain of Being.

18. Renaissance

19. Linnaeus and the Natural Scheme of Life Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778), an eminent Swedish botanist and the author of Systema Naturae built on John Ray’s writings to create the most comprehensive classification of the plant world compiled at the time. Taxonomy: the science of biological classification. Binomial nomenclature: Linnaean naming system for all organisms, consisting of a genus and species label.

21. The Road to Darwinian Evolution Comte de Buffon: observed that animals that migrate to new climates often change in response to environments, although like others of his day, he had no idea about the mechanism of change. Georges Cuvier: sought to explain fossils with the theory of catastrophism – theory that there have been multiple creations interspersed by great natural disasters such as Noah’s flood. Geoffroy Saint-Hiliaire: contemporary opponent to Cuvier and proponent of his colleague Jean-Baptiste Lamarck.

22. Lamarkian Evolution Theory of inheritance of acquired traits: discredited theory of evolutionary change proposing that changes that occur during a lifetime of an individual, through use or disuse, can be passed on to the next generation.

23. The Uniformitarians: Hutton and Lyell Uniformitarianism: theory that the same gradual geological process we observe today was operating in the past.

24. Chuck D.

25. “Darwin’s finches” “Seeing this graduation and diversity of structure in one small, intimately related group of birds, one might really fancy that from on original paucity of birds in this archipelago, one species have been taken and modified for different ends” - Darwin 1839 The good and the bad?

26. Key terms Biogeography: the distribution of animals and plants on the Earth. Adaptive Radiation: the diversification of one founding species into multiple species and niches. Natural Selection: differential reproductive success over multiple generations. Vestigial Organs: body parts that seem to serve no modern purpose and have, therefore, atrophied. Fitness: reproductive success (and no, not what you do on the weekends!)

27. Alfred Wallace pushes Darwin

28. Darwin’s three observations and two deductions Observation 1: All organisms have the potential for explosive population growth that would outstrip their food supply. Observation 2: But when we look at nature, we see populations that are roughly stable. Deduction 1: Therefore, there must be a struggle for existence. (This Darwin labeled natural selection to parallel the term artificial selection in use by animal breeders of the period). Observation 3: Nature is full of variation. Even in one animal group, every individual is slightly different from every other individual. Deduction 2: Therefore, some of these variation must be favored, and other must be disfavored, in a process we call natural selection.

29. For natural selection to work, three preconditions must be met. The trait in question must be inherited. The trait in question must show variation between individuals. The filter between organism and its genetic makeup is the environment, which must exert some pressure in order for natural selection to act.

30. More key terms Population: an interbreeding group of organisms. Mutation: an alteration in the DNA, which may or may not alter the function of a cell. If it occurs in a gamete, it may be passed from one generation to the next. Evolution happens at the level of the population while natural selection occurs at the level of the individual organism.

31. Reaction to Darwin