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Life, 4/e

Ricki Lewis, University of New York at Albany
Mariëlle Hoefnagels, University of Oklahoma
Douglas Gaffin, University of Oklahoma
Bruce Parker, Utah Valley State College

The Evolution of Evolutionary Thought

Testing Your Knowledge

1. How can evolution explain the seeming contradiction that life is both very diverse, but that all species share many features, especially at the biochemical level?

2. What is the difference between microevolutionary and macroevolutionary change?

3. How did James Hutton, Georges Cuvier, Georges Buffon, Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck, Charles Lyell, and Thomas Malthus influence Charles Darwin’s thinking?

4. Why must natural selection work on inherited, rather than on acquired, traits in order to drive evolution?

5. What sorts of traits lead to “fitness” in the Darwinian sense?

6. How do the appearances of new infectious diseases or resurgences of old ones illustrate continuing evolution?

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Additional Questions

1. At the Scopes monkey trial, many of the people attempting to banish the teaching of evolutionary theory in schools considered Darwinian evolution to mean only that humans descended from apes. How is this idea incorrect?

2. How can natural selection explain evolutionary change?

3. The term highly evolved is often interpreted to mean, “perfect.” Why is this definition inaccurate if applied to Darwinian evolution?

4. How does artificial selection differ from natural selection? How are they similar?

5. How is sexual selection a form of natural selection?

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14.1 Evolution is a Framework for Understanding How Life Works

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14.2 Charles Darwin's Voyage on the HMS Beagle, and Afterward

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