BIO 258 Notes
WEEK #1.
INTRODUCTION

• Nature of science. (Futuyma ch. 1; Minkoff ch. 1;   E1)
  • Scientific methods; falsifiable hypotheses;
  • Natural vs experimental science
  • Paradigms
• Living systems; cells (  E2)
  • Vitalism/mechanism; reductionism/compositionism; properties of life
• Evolution
  • as a process
  • as a theory
  • relation to other sciences
  __________

HISTORY OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORIES

• Biological classicism and the scala naturae. (Futuyma ch. 2; Minkoff Ch. 3;   E3)
  • Preclassical: Thales, Anaximander, Heracleitos, Empedocles, Democritos, Epicurus, Lucretius.
  • Classical: Sophists, Socrates/Plato, Aristotle, Medieval times, Aquinas,
    Scala naturae and its supporters (some in poetry), Linnaeus.
    
  • Breakdown of classicism: Renaissance botanists & anatomists; geographical explorations; Buffon; Cuvier.
• French environmentalism (E4)
  • French revolution; Maupertius, Lamarck, and change
  • Adaptation: Humboldt, Buffon, Geoffroy, Lamarck
  __________
• German romanticism and Naturphilosophie.
  • Oken; literary influences
  • Bauplan theory & homology: Goethe ("Alles ist Blatt"), Owen and homology
  • Embryology: Meckel, Von Baer, Haeckel
  • Cell theory: Schleiden, Schwann, Virchow
• Natural Theology (E5)
  • Aquinas, Ray, Hume, Kant, Paley, Earl of Bridgewater
• Early geology, up to 1830. (Minkoff Ch. 4).
  • Nature of fossils: Xenophanes, Herodotus, DaVinci, Steno
  • Age of the Earth
  • Catastrophism & Uniformitarianism: Ray, Werner, Hutton, Smith, Cuvier, Sedgwick

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Week 2

revised March 2003 (3)