Exam 20: The Development of Evolutionary Thought

Why didn't Darwin's contemporaries readily accept his theory of natural selection?

A mutation in the Hoxc8 gene in the ancestor of modern snakes caused its descendants to have ____.

At first, the most important conflict between Darwin's and Mendel's theories appeared to be that ____.

Pigs have feet with toes that do not touch the ground. These toes are examples of ____.

The fossil record documents ____, providing clear evidence of ongoing change in biological lineages.

Which pairing between evolutionary evidence and a biological discipline is NOT correct?

To determine conclusively that the 15 Galápagos finch species are descended from a common ancestor, biologists could most effectively use ____.

Darwin provided both physical and spiritual explanations for the origins of biological diversity.

Evolutionary studies that use comparative morphology to analyze the structures of related organisms are primarily based on comparisons of homologous traits.

Morphological differences between European beavers and South American ____ contributed to Darwin's thoughts on species diversification.

Describe Lamarck's four most important ideas that influenced Darwin's evolutionary theory.

Fossils in the deepest layers of sedimentary rocks are typically ____ compared to fossils in the more shallow layers.

The specific discipline that linked Mendel's and Darwin's work was ____.

In the 1930s and 1940s, a theory referred to as the ____integrated data from biogeography, comparative morphology, comparative embryology, paleontology, and taxonomy within an evolutionary framework.

When fossils were first discovered, some scientists suggested they were the remains of extinct organisms. This idea conflicted with the views of natural theologians who____.

The proposition that species change through time was proposed by ____.

Fossils and molecular techniques reveal that the closest ancient wolflike relatives of most modern dogs lived in ____.

While aboard the H.M.S. Beagle , Darwin was given a book called Principles of Geology , which primed him to apply ____ to the living world.

Who was known as "Darwin's bulldog" because he was such a staunch advocate of Darwin's evolutionary theory?

In the early twentieth century, ____ discovered that genes are carried on chromosomes.