Bio 1B Lecture Outline please print and bring along B D Mishler Dept of Integrative Biology Fall 2008 2 6810 bmishler berkeley edu Evolution Lecture 2 History of evolutionary thought in relation to philosophy Nov 5 2008 A Prelude the wonders of adaptation fit of organisms to environment What was it that stimulated people to think about biodiversity in sheer wonder B Introduction As we discussed last time the ideas relating to evolution of species and the tree of life are among the most profound ideas the human species has been able to generate over its history It has taken a lot of time and false starts to get to where we are today It is important to look at the background of the pre evolutionary worldview to understand the context in which Darwin and others worked It is also important to think hard about the philosophical background Important criteria to think about in looking at this history Relative balance in importance of theory vs data rationalism vs empiricism The role of technology Metaphors that people use to conceptualize the world geometric shapes maps trees The nature and importance of variation C The ancient Greeks through Linnaeus Essentialism Aristotelian Platonic tradition o ideals essential reality to entities in nature o The type o What is the role of variation in this worldview o What are species in this worldview o Later translated easily into creationism divine plan The Great Chain of Being still with us after 2000 years o Relative perfection o Roll even today in nationalism racism sexism D The Middle Ages stasis copying and interpreting past works organized religion E The Renaissance A new willingness to look at empirical data and question authority Printing communication Advent of extensive travel and exploration variation o Cook o Humboldt o Lewis and Clark Evolution 2 pg 1 Development of the natural system of classification o Formalized by Antoine Laurent de Jussieu 1774 With significant help from Darwin s friends Joseph Hooker and Asa Gray o Classification based on multiple features of organisms subordinates certain characters depending on importance What about fossils o The study of fossils helped to lay the groundwork for Darwin s ideas o Fossils are remains or traces of organisms from the past usually found in sedimentary rock which appears in layers or strata o Paleontology the study of fossils was largely developed by French scientist Georges Cuvier o Cuvier advocated catastrophism speculating that each boundary between strata represents a catastrophe o Gradualism is the contrasting idea that profound change can take place through the cumulative effect of slow but continuous processes o Geologists Hutton and Lyell perceived that changes in Earth s surface can result from slow continuous actions still operating today uniformitarianism o This view strongly influenced Darwin s thinking F Summary of pre evolutionary thought Pre 1750 Greek philosophy natural theology 1750 Linnaeus Taxonomy 1800 Cuvier Vertebrate paleontology 1800 Hutton Gradualism 1830 Lyell Uniformitarianism G Early approaches to evolution Lamarck o Use and disuse o Inheritance of acquired characteristics o temporalized the great chain of being Erasmus Darwin Charlies s grandfather H By the early 1800 s it was widely speculated that Earth millions of years old Fossil record shows extinct organisms Similarities between fossil living organisms Organisms had descended from previously existing ones BUT two major questions remained o What mechanism could explain WHY organisms changed through time o How would organisms be ABLE to change ie what mechanism of heredity could enable organisms to change Answers were given by o Wallace to be discussed next lecture o Charles Darwin Evolution 2 pg 2 I Philosophy of Science what is it that makes science science The history of philosophy o essentialism o rationalism went to an extreme in late middle ages o empiricism went to an extreme by the 1960 s o modern view is a mixture of the rational and the empirical with some additions The modern view o Ontology Background theories stating what kinds of entities exists what are their fundamental meanings and relationships e g homologies phylogenies species etc o Epistemology Background theories stating what kinds of empirical operations and methods can be used to discover the underlying ontological entities and relationships e g characters statistics cladistic analysis etc o Sociology of science Motivations patterns of teaching cooperating fighting progress in science Kuhn 1970 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is the classic see also Hull 1988 Science as a Process Concepts to discuss Hypothesis Prediction Main hypothesis Auxiliary hypotheses Null hypothesis Falsification the boundary between science and non science Experiment Control Replication Observation versus experiment Historical versus experimental science Cause Model Confidence AH AH H P AH Evolution 2 pg 3 AH
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