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Oct 19, 2023 · Adaptations that develop in response to one challenge sometimes help with or become co-opted for another. Feathers were probably first adaptations for tactile sense or regulating temperature. Later, feathers became longer and stiffer, allowing for gliding and then for flight. Such traits are called exaptations.
1.) the trait under selection must be VARIABLE in the population, so that the encoding gene has more than one variant, or allele. 2.) the trait under selection must be HERITABLE, encoded by a gene or genes 3.) the STRUGGLE OF EXISTENCE: that many more offspring are born than can survive in the environment. 4.) individuals with different alleles have DIFFERENT SURVIVAL AND REPRODUCTION that is ...
Survival is necessary for reproduction, so survival is important, but only if it leads to increased reproduction. We call a heritable trait that improves an organism’s survival and reproduction in its present environment an adaptation. Scientists describe groups of organisms adapting to their environment when a genetic variation occurs over ...
- Teleology and The “Function Compunction”
- Anthropomorphism and Intentionality
- Use and Disuse
- Soft Inheritance
- Nature as A Selecting Agent
- Source Versus Sorting of Variation
- Typological, Essentialist, and Transformationist Thinking
- Events and Absolutes Versus Processes and Probabilities
Much of the human experience involves overcoming obstacles, achieving goals, and fulfilling needs. Not surprisingly, human psychology includes a powerful bias toward thoughts about the “purpose” or “function” of objects and behaviors—what Kelemen and Rosset (2009) dub the “human function compunction.” This bias is particularly strong in children, w...
A related conceptual bias to teleology is anthropomorphism, in which human-like conscious intent is ascribed either to the objects of natural selection or to the process itself (see below). In this sense, anthropomorphic misconceptions can be characterized as either internal (attributing adaptive change to the intentional actions of organisms) or e...
Many students who manage to avoid teleological and anthropomorphic pitfalls nonetheless conceive of evolution as involving change due to use or disuse of organs. This view, which was developed explicitly by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck but was also invoked to an extent by Darwin (1859), emphasizes changes to individual organisms that occur as they use par...
Evolution involving changes in individual organisms, whether based on conscious choice or use and disuse, would require that characteristics acquired during the lifetime of an individual be passed on to offspringFootnote 12, a process often termed “soft inheritance.” The notion that acquired traits can be transmitted to offspring remained a common ...
Thirty years ago, widely respected broadcaster Sir David Attenborough (1979) aptly described the challenge of avoiding anthropomorphic shorthand in descriptions of adaptation: Unlike many authors, Attenborough (1979) admirably endeavored to not use such misleading terminology. However, this quote inadvertently highlights an additional challenge in ...
Intuitive models of evolution based on soft inheritance are one-step models of adaptation: Traits are modified in one generation and appear in their altered form in the next. This is in conflict with the actual two-step process of adaptation involving the independent processes of mutation and natural selection. Unfortunately, many students who esch...
Misunderstandings about how variation arises are problematic, but a common failure to recognize that it plays a role at all represents an even a deeper concern. Since Darwin (1859), evolutionary theory has been based strongly on “population” thinking that emphasizes differences among individuals. By contrast, many naïve interpretations of evolution...
A proper understanding of natural selection recognizes it as a process that occurs within populations over the course of many generations. It does so through cumulative, statistical effects on the proportion of traits differing in their consequences for reproductive success. This contrasts with two major errors that are commonly incorporated into n...
- T. Ryan Gregory
- rgregory@uoguelph.ca
- 2009
Oct 19, 2023 · An adaptation is a difference that allows an organism to better survive in its environment. Structural and Behavioral Adaptations. Some adaptations are structural. That means they are a physical part of the organism. They change how a living thing looks. Other adaptations are behavioral. That means they affect the way a living thing acts.
May 24, 2023 · Inheritance: Inherited traits that are advantageous for survival are more likely to be passed on to subsequent generations. For natural selection to occur, an individual must have a heritable trait that is strongly influenced by environmental conditions. These advantageous traits are said to be selected or favored by natural selection.
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Definitions of Evolutionary Terms. The adjustment or changes in behavior, physiology, and structure of an organism to become more suited to an environment. According to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, organisms that possess heritable traits that enable them to better adapt to their environment compared with other ...
