Abiogenesis
Scientists wonder if life started in the ocean, calling the early waters this.
What is the Primordial Soup?
This Law of Thermodynamics states that the entropy of an isolated system left to spontaneous evolution cannot decrease with time, only increase.
What is the Law of Entropy (or 2nd Law of Thermodynamics)?
Darwin’s observations of unique finches and giant tortoises took place on this archipelago in the Pacific Ocean.
What are the Galapagos Islands?
Preserved remains, impressions, or traces of a once-living organism from a past geological age.
What is a Fossil?
Often summarized by the phrase "survival of the fittest," it is the process where organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring.
What is Natural Selection?
This famous 1953 experiment successfully simulated early Earth conditions by sparking a gas mixture, producing amino acids.
What is the Miller-Urey experiment?
Coined by Michael Behe, this term argues that certain biological systems cannot evolve by successive small modifications, as removing just one part causes the whole system to fail.
What is Irreducible Complexity?
In 1859, Darwin shook the scientific establishment by publishing his theory in this groundbreaking book.
What is "On the Origin of Species"?
The relatively sudden appearance of most major animal phyla in the fossil record around 541 million years ago.
What is the Cambrian Explosion?
A structural, physiological, or behavioral trait that improves an organism's chances of survival and reproduction in its environment.
What is an Adaptation?
This "world" hypothesis suggests that this single-stranded molecule was the first genetic material and catalyst before DNA.
What is the RNA World hypothesis?
These fossils, such as upright tree trunks, intersect multiple geological layers, which critics use to argue against the slow, uniform deposition of rock layers over millions of years.
What are Polystrate Fossils (or Cross-Stratification)?
Charles Darwin collected much of the data that would form his theory during a five-year voyage on this British Royal Navy ship.
What is the HMS Beagle?
This famous fossil was once cited as a transitional "missing link" because it shows features of both theropod dinosaurs and modern birds?
What is Archaeopteryx?
An adaptation of an organism which allows it to blend into its environment so that its predators cannot easily see it.
What is Camouflage?
These alkaline, deep-sea chimney structures are considered by many modern scientists as the leading candidate for where life first originated.
What are Hydrothermal Vents?
Critics of deep time often point to this specific dating method (normally meant for organic remains up to 50,000 years old) yielding measurable, "young" ages when used on ancient coal or diamonds.
What is Carbon-14 dating (or Radiocarbon dating)?
This British naturalist independently conceived the theory of evolution through natural selection while in the Malay Archipelago, prompting Darwin to finally publish his own work.
Who is Alfred Russel Wallace?
The term for anatomical structures, such as the human appendix or the pelvic bones in whales, which are said to have lost most or all of their original ancestral function.
What are Vestigial Structures?
When humans, rather than nature, selectively breed plants and animals for specific desired traits, it is known by this term.
What is Artificial Selection?
A major hurdle in abiogenesis is the formation of these lipid bilayer spheres, considered a necessary step to enclose the first protocells.
What are Cell Membranes (or Liposomes/Vesicles/Micelles)?
This mathematical hurdle highlights that the probability of forming even a single functional protein by random chance is astronomically low, making unguided origin statistically impossible.
What is the Complexity Problem (or the Probability Problem)?
Before Darwin, this French biologist incorrectly proposed that organisms could pass on traits acquired during their lifetime, using the example of a giraffe stretching its neck.
Who is Jean-Baptiste Lamarck?
This geological principle states that in an undisturbed sequence of rocks, the oldest layers are at the bottom and the youngest are at the top.
What is the Law of Superposition?
This specific type of natural selection favors the intermediate variants of a trait and acts against the extreme phenotypes.
What is Stabilizing Selection?