Like all good scientific hypotheses, Neo-Darwinian Evolutionary Theory makes emp

Question

Like all good scientific hypotheses, Neo-Darwinian Evolutionary Theory makes empirical predictions (i.e. predictions about the world that can be tested through observation).

Identify at least one prediction Neo-Darwinian Evolutionary Theory makes about the world that can be tested using observations of extant organisms (NOT fossils), either in the lab or in natural populations, and explain how that test provides evidence in favor of Neo-Darwinian Evolutionary Theory.

Identify at least one prediction Neo-Darwinian Evolutionary Theory makes about the world that can be tested using the fossil record and explain how that test provides evidence in favor of Neo-Darwinian Evolutionary Theory.

Explanation / Answer

American continent (rheas); and the micro-version of the same geographic replacement patterns on different islands in a chain (mockingbirds and tortoises)—that led Darwin to entertain, and then accept, the idea of evolution. It was his focus on endemic species in "allied groups" that set him apart from those who could not—or perhaps would not—accept transmutation.After several false starts, Darwin hit upon the idea of natural selection, which combined his knowledge of variation and inheritance with a realization derived from reading the economist Thomas Malthus: that more organisms are born each generation than can possibly survive and reproduce. The organisms with the heritable variations that make them best suited for surviving are the most likely to produce offspring—and to pass on their "recipe for success" to succeeding generations. When environments change, different variants will be favored, and evolutionary change will occur.

Transitional fossils, for example, provide plausible links between several different groups of organisms, such as Archaeopteryx linking birds and dinosaurs, or the Tiktaalik linking fish and limbed amphibians. Creationists dispute such examples, from asserting that such fossils are hoaxes or that they belong exclusively to one group or the other, to asserting that there should be far more evidence of obvious transitional species. He saw that the fossilized invertebrates exposed in the rocks on the beach were the very same species whose shells littered the beach. These observations drew on his training in geology and paleontology with Sedgwick, his reading of Lyell, and his focus on comparing fossil and modern specimens of the same natural group.Darwin focused on "allied" species that replace each other geographically—that is, across space rather than time.

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