Film: The Origin of Species

When Charles Darwin set sail on his five-year journey on the HMS Beagle, both he and most of his contemporary scientists thought that

• each species was specially created by God in its present form and did not change over time.

• each species was a product of natural laws and changeable over time.

• each species had been selectively bred by humans after the invention of agriculture.

• each species had evolved into its present form by way of genetic mutation.

Darwin and Wallace both gathered a large number of observations and facts on which they based their theories. Which of the following types of evidence was NOT part of the evidence they gathered?

• fossil evidence

• anatomical evidence

• geographical distribution

• genetic evidence

The diagrams to the right illustrate the bones in the forelimbs of four different organisms. Although these limbs all look different, they share some common patterns. These common patterns suggest that

• These organisms are members of the same species.

• The organisms existed at about the same point in time.

• These organisms share a common ancestor.

• These organisms have exactly the same genes.

The image is the famous “I think” sketch that appears in one of Darwin’s notebooks. a. In one or two sentences, explain what this sketch represents.

Which observation led Wallace to conclude that all species are connected in a tree of life?

• Around the globe, the more similar two species are, the closer to each other they tend to live.

• Different species migrated from Australia to the islands of the Malay Archipelago.

• Both the butterflies and the birds he studied had wings.

• Darwin had published the same ideas in On the Origin of Species.

Describe one thing you learned in the film that you did not know before.