1.I believe Charles Lyell was the most influential on the development of natural selection because he is the founder of modern geology.
2. Charles Lyell contributed a lot to the scientific community, by implementing the geological processes with a theory called geological uniformatism demonstrated that forces such as wind, erosion, local flooding all contributed in the past to produce the geological landscape that we see today.
Here is a link http://allaboutscience.org/sir-charles-lyell-faq.htm
3. I believe the bullet point that best describes Darwin’s point was the one that stated if the environment changes,the traits that are helpful or adaptive to that environment will be different.Here, Lyell demonstrated that forces such as wind ,water erosion, local flooding,frost ,decomposition of vegetable matter ,volcanoes, earthquakes,and glacial movements had all contributed in the past t o produce the geological landscape that we see today.
4.I believe that Darwin could not have developed his theory of natural selection without the influence of Lyell . This is because Darwin and Lyell shared a support of uniformitarian’s. Also it helped Darwin to validate his own beliefs . The processes were ongoing , indicating that geological change continues to still happen and the forces driving such change were consistent , or uniform , overtime.This means that various aspects of the earth’s surface such as the climate , plants, animals,and land surfaces vary through time, are constant.
5..Charles Darwin began slowing down on the process of publishing his book “On the origin of species” due to the fact that he was hesitated by the church because Darwin knew it would be very controversial with many people who believe in a literal interpretation of the bible would accept no compromise. Religion and science vary from different aspects of the human experience, and they aren’t inherently mutually exclusive approaches. Darwin was also troubled by his wife Emma, whom saw his ideas as running counter to her strong religious convictions.
Hello Margarita. Slim pickings here so I'll pick on you.
ReplyDeleteI have to disagree with the assumption that volcanoes and earthquakes are uniform; they should not should not be included into the philosophy of Unitarianism. There is an opposing view to Uniformity known as Catastrophism - sudden, short-lived violent events, asteroid impacts and glacial flooding are others. These, I believe had a more pronounced effect on evolution than Uniformity can attest to. It's now accepted that an asteroid impact 65 mya, known as the K-T event, wiped out 75% of the all spices. In all, the so-called Big-Five of these events, dating to 542 mya have consumed 50.9% of all species that left fossils, before the Phanerozoic > 542 who knows, living organisms had soft bodies that left no fossil evidence.
Overall, very good post. I just have one addition with regard to Lyell's contribution to Darwin. You touch on it a little, but don't pull it out for evidence as you should.
ReplyDeleteOne of the greatest contribution Lyell made to Darwin was TIME! Up until Lyell's publication, the general thought was that the earth was only 1000's of years old. Lyell's work demonstrated that the earth was likely the result of these relatively uniform process happening over MILLIONS of years (though of course now we know it was billions).
Evolution requires lots and lots of time. If there earth was only thousands of years old, evolution could not have produced the diversity of species we have on the planet. It if is millions (billions) of years old, evolution has time to work.
Otherwise, good post.
@stringcatt,
ReplyDeleteMargarita is correct in identifying volcanoes and earthquakes within Lyell's concept of uniformitarianism, since Lyell himself included them as well (it's in your textbook).
Catastrophism had nothing to do with evolution as it was proposed by Cuvier. Cuvier was arguing that organism DIDN'T evolve. Instead, the earth experienced catastrophies (like Noah's flood) which wiped out species, followed by independent acts of creation by God to create all new species.
Under Lyell's concept of uniformitarianism, earthquakes and volcanoes are considered "uniform" events because in geologic terms they have occurred throughout evolutionary time contributing to the shaping of the earth and relatively slow changes to environment, again, in geologic time, not human time. With respect to humans, they are catastrophic. With respect to the environment as a whole, they aren't.
hello!
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your post I can agree that Darwin would not have been successful without Lyell.Without Darwin understanding the environmental change that occurs it could not have led to the theory that the animal and plant life evolves with it. The environment changes constantly and thus effects the evolution of its animals and plants in that domain. Your points in regards to the bullet point were well explained,the environment is consistently changing due to weather factors that effect vegetation and surrounding life.
@ Laurie. It's interesting to see your criticism of me debunk your own rebuttal. In fact it seems that I am the only student whose rebuttals you take time to criticize. Read up on uniformity, most of it has been debunked. You said Catastrophism effects human evolution - exactly what I said. Ummmmmm?
ReplyDelete@stringcatt,
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry you feel targeted but it is not the case. It's my responsibility to provide feedback to all my students and correct misconceptions if they occur. If I neglected to comment on your misconceptions I would be treating you differently from the rest of the students. That would be failing to meet my teaching responsibilities and it would be unethical.
Please review chapter 2 of your text to gain a better understanding of the concepts of catastrophism and uniformiatianism. Email me directly with any questions you might still have.
@ Laurie. Try to think outside the book. Its views are out-dated and run concurrent to modern thinking. Uniformity i.e. extreme gradualism has led to numerous unfortunate consequences, including the rejection of sudden or catastrophic events in the face of positive evidence for them and their effects on evolution, for no reason other than that they were not gradual.
ReplyDeleteUniformitarianism, together with the Geologic Column presupposed by Lyell based on uniformity, have been disproved by geologic features such as poly-strata fossils, misplaced fossils, missing layers and misplaced layers (including layers in reverse order or "ancient" layers found above "modern" layers). Furthermore, observed cataclysmic events such as the eruption of Mt. St. Helens in 1980 and the observed aftermath of these events such as asteroid impacts, have validated Catastrophism, which is contrary to Uniformitarianism. We now know that catastrophe has had a significant role not only in forming Earth's currently observable features but also their profound effects that have disrupted evolution.
error in above posting. Not concurrent but against.
ReplyDeleteStringcatt,
ReplyDeleteThank you for the further contribution to this discussion.
The source for your information in the last comment is directly copied from a site called allaboutcreation.org., specifically the location: http://www.allaboutcreation.org/uniformitarianism.htm
This source is religious in nature and content, not scientific, and therefore outside the scope of this class. Please be aware of your sources for future comments and make sure they are scientifically based. Also be careful to source and quote when copying information verbatim.