evidence against Darwin - 7 main objections
- evolution still just a theory - still has questions, lacking proof
- no fossil intermediates - no evidence of transition between organisms
- increasing fossil evidence says otherwise
- intelligent design - organs too complex for a random process
- organs develop as series of slight/tiny improvements
- evolution violates 2nd law of thermodynamics - things tend towards disorder, not order
- organisms shouldn’t become more advanced
- proteins too improbable - 20 proteins, near countless number of arrangements
- extremely low chance maybe, but still possible when given enough time
- “give a monkey a typewriter…if given enough time, he will write Shakespeare”
- natural selection doesn’t imply evolution - production of radically different organisms possible in laboratory now
- irreducible complexity argument - each part essential to overall process, can’t evolve
- each part considered to evolve as part of the working system
Darwin ’s major points - variation in all natural populations
- most have potential to reproduce at rate that can deplete all natural resources
- resources limited >> those w/ most advantageous adaptations survive
- natural selection - “survival of the fittest”
- produces different reproduction rates
- not necessarily directly related to death
- fitness - number of surviving offspring left in the next generation
- combination of survival, mating success, number of offspring per mating
- usually involves female fitness (hard to determine father)
- behavioral ecology - study of how natural selection affects behavior
- adaptive significance - how behavior increase survival/reproduction
3 tenants of natural selection - number of fertilized eggs isn’t always the number of offspring
- nonrandom survival - things don’t survive randomly
- nonrandom mating - purposeful action
- nonrandom fecundity - a reason to why certain creatures produce more offspring
- survival strategies
- altricial - unable to care for itself
- precocial - born ready/mature
- reproductive trait - number produced at each reproduction
- parental care - needed for animal to grow/survive
Subject:
Subject X2:
