1. Chapter 15 Theory of Evolution
15-1 History of Evolutionary Thought
Notes continued…
View the following 4 slides of notes and copy notes into your notebook.

2. Contributors to Darwin
Before Darwin’s time, most scientist thought the earth and it’s organisms were permanent and unchanging
Earth was thought to only be thousands of years old
How old is it actually?
About 4.5 Billion years old
Geologists started to identify the actual age of the earth by looking at the rock strata: rock layers
Oldest layers on bottom

3. Contributors French anatomist Georges Cuvier
Reconstructed fossils
Some organisms in the past differed greatly form any living species
“sudden changes” result of catastrophism >> caused extinction
English geologist Charles Lyell
Uniformitarianism
the theory that changes in the earth's crust during geological history have resulted from the action of continuous and uniform processes
French biologist Jean Baptiste Lamarck
INHERITANCE OF ACQUIRED CHARACTERISTICS
is the idea that an organism can pass on characteristics that it acquired during its lifetime to its offspring

4. Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics