Comparative & Evolutionary
y
gy
Psychology
The Center of the Universe
Mobile County School Board
• You are a member of the Mobile County
School Board.
– How would you evaluate the preceding
science assignment for 3rd graders.
graders
– A. Excellent
– B. Good
– C. Adequate
– D. Poor
– E. Disturbing, the instructor should be fired!
Galileo
• 1564-1642
• Entered the University of Pisa in 1581 to
study medicine.
• Changed
Ch
d majors
j
tto philosophy
hil
h and
d math.
th
• 1585 became a college drop-out.
• 1589 became a professor of math at Pisa.
Time Warp
• You are a member of a community council
in Salem, MA in 1701. How should the
preceding science assignment be
evaluated?
– A. Excellent
– B. Good
– C. Adequate
– D. Poor
– E. Disturbing, the instructor should be burned
at the stake!
Galileo
• The founder of modern
science.
• The first useful
telescopes were
produced by Dutch
eyeglass
l
makers
k
iin 1608
1608.
• Galileo greatly improved
upon this early design in
1609, and his skill in the
art of spyglass
construction may have
saved him during the
inquisition.
1
Early Telescopes
Galileo
• 1592 was fired (contract not renewed) for
dropping objects out of the tower to show
that Aristotle was wrong.
• This is considered by some authorities to
be an apocryphal tale, and the only source
for it having actually occurred comes from
Galileo's secretary.[6]
Tower of Pisa
Aristotle
Greek: 384 to 322 BC
1173 -1372
Observation and bell tower
Today about 3 miles to the coast,
when constructed the coast may have
been closer
Aristotelian Physics
• The five elements
– Main article: Classical element
•
•
•
•
•
Fire, which is hot and dry.
Earth, which is cold and dry.
Air, which is hot and wet.
Water, which is cold and wet.
Aether, which is the divine substance that makes up the heavenly
spheres and heavenly bodies (stars and planets).
• Each of the four earthly elements has its natural place; the earth at
the centre of the universe, then water, then air, then fire. When they
are out of their natural place they have natural motion, requiring no
external cause, which is towards that place; so bodies sink in water,
air bubbles up, rain falls, flame rises in air. The heavenly element
has perpetual circular motion.
Galileo
• 1592 became chair of mathematics at
University of Padua.
• 1609 started building spyglasses up to 20
power.
power
• Discovered new bodies in the sky (4
moons around Jupiter) which contradicted
Aristotle’s view that “nothing new could
appear in the heavens”.
2
Galileo
• 1613 predicted that the Copernician theory
would be proven correct.
• 1613 a rival initiates the idea that belief in a
g earth is heretical.
moving
• 1614 a Florentine priest denounces Galileo.
• Galileo claims that interpretations of the Bible
should be adapted to increases in scientific
knowledge, and that no scientific position should
be made an article of Catholic faith.
Galileo’s Mistake
• Aristotelian Physics has nothing to do with
Christianity.
• Aristotle was a pagan and lived 3
centuries before Christ.
• Scholarship was associated with the
Church, but is independent of theology.
• He should have argued that scholarly
interpretations of the universe should be
adopted to increases in scientific
knowledge.
Galileo
Galileo
• 1616 Cardinal Bellarmine instructs Galileo
that he must no longer personally hold or
defend the concept that the earth moves,
but he may treat this idea hypothetically
for scientific purposes.
• With Bellarmine’s support Galileo stayed
out of trouble for 16 years.
• 1632 Galileo discusses the geocentric and
heliocentric hypotheses in relation to the
physics of the tides. This topic had
previously been approved for scientific
exploration by Bellarmine. However,
Cardinal Bellarmine has died, and Galileo
is no longer protected from his rivals.
Galileo’s rivals pressure (manipulate?) the
church to take action against Galileo.
Galileo
Galileo’s Legacy
• 1633 Galileo is sentenced to life
imprisonment (commuted to house arrest),
and is ordered to recant his heresy.
y
• 1633 to 1992 = 359 years to fully endorse
the idea that formal logic and academic
inquiry should not be subject to political
and theological interference
interference.
• 359 years pass
• 1992 The Church reverses its
condemnation of Galileo.
• Scientific discoveries need not be
perceived to conflict with the fundamental
principles regarding matters of faith.
3
• Brown predicts that on November 24, in the year
2218 somebody will decide that the idea of
evolution does not diminish religious faith and
practice (359 years after the publication of “On
the Origin of Species by Means of Natural
Selection”).
Pace of Change
8000
7000
6000
5000
People (M))
What about the ‘e’ word?
4000
3000
• We’ll meet back here in 210 years to see if
Brown’s prediction is up-held. Refreshments will
be served! Make plans to attend today!
2000
1000
0
-1000
-500
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
Year
World Population
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
10,000 BC
5,000 BC
1,000 BC
1
1,000
,
1,750
1,800
1,850
1,900
1,950
2,000
2,008
1M
15 M
50 M
200 M
310 M
790 M
980 M
1,260 M
1,650 M
2,520 M
6,070 M
6,707 M
(Hunting & Gathering)
(Agriculture)
Voyager and the
pace of change
(Medicine)
Voyager 1 & 2
• The Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft
were launched from Cape Canaveral,
Florida, during the summer of 1977. They
were originally designed to conduct
closeup studies of Jupiter and Saturn
during their 5-year missions.
Voyager
• Following the successful achievement of
these objectives, their missions were
extended to include flybys of Uranus and
Neptune Eventually
Neptune.
Eventually, between them the 2
Voyager spacecraft would explore all the
giant outer planets of our solar system, 48
of their moons, and the systems of rings
and magnetic fields those planets
possess.
4
A squashed solar system
Voyager 1 & 2
• Because Voyager 2 crossed the
heliosheath boundary, called the solar
wind termination shock, about 10 billion
miles away from Voyager 1 and almost a
billion miles closer to the sun, it confirmed
that our solar system is " squashed" or "
dented"- that the bubble carved into
interstellar space by the solar wind is not
perfectly round.
• “We hoped to reach interstellar space, but
didn't know how long it would take or how
long the spacecraft would last. They have
enough power to last until 2025. Models
suggest that Voyager 1 will reach
interstellar space first, in about 5–10
years. But we don't know how thick the
heliosheath is, nor how strongly the
interaction with the interstellar wind affects
the solar wind.”
Voyager 1 & 2
Pace of Change
• These space craft have been sending data
to NASA for 31 years, and are expected to
last until 2025.
• The archival data format was the “state
state of
the art” paper tape in 1977. Paper tape
readers have been obsolete for many
years. The data have to keep being resampled and stored, because there is no
archival format.
• For most of human history the world
stayed pretty much the same during the
span of a human lifetime.
• The future was like the p
present,, which was
like the past.
• The idea of a historical earth unlike the
present day was unthinkable fantasy.
• The idea of global warming would have
been heretical.
Early Estimates of the
Age of the Earth
James Ussher
(1581-1656)
Archbishop of Armagh
• 1650 James Ussher used the numerology of the
Old Testament to estimate the earth to be 5,654
years old.
• JJohn
h Li
Lightfoot
htf t refined
fi d th
these calculations
l l ti
and
d
determined that the earth was created at 9:00
Am, October 23, 4004 BC. The time and date
coincided with the beginning of the academic
year at Cambridge University where Lightfoot
served as the Master of St. Catherine’s College.
5
St. Catherine’s College
St Catharine's College
was founded in 1473 and
is situated in the centre of
Cambridge. It was largely
rebuilt in the 17th century
with work on the Main
Court beginning in 1673;
the Chapel was
completed in 1704.
The College comprises
the Master, Professor
Dame Jean Thomas, 69
Fellows and Research
Fellows, some 150
graduate students, and
about 410
undergraduates.
1st recorded suggestion of great
antiquity for humankind
1650
• Geology and archeology were yet to be
invented.
• The Church and State were not separate
institutions.
institutions
• Most educated and scholarly individuals
were associated with the Church.
Plaque near Suffolk
• 1797 John Frere (rhymes with care) reported to
the Royal Society of London the discovery of
manmade tools and extinct animals (elephants)
beneath 12’ of earth near Norfolk, England.
Tools at this depth “tempt us to refer them to
a very remote period indeed, even beyond that
of the present world”.
(Great-great-great grandfather of Mary Leakey)
Discovery of Fossils
Cuvier
• Baron Georges Cuvier (1769-1832)
– The founder of paleontology
– Documentation of prehistoric life forms
– Catastrophe Theory: a catastrophe wipes out
life, a period of calm follows, then the earth is
restocked with new and improved species.
Noah’s flood was but one catastrophe, and
there must have been others (27-32).
"Why has not anyone seen that fossils
alone gave birth to a theory about the
formation of the earth
earth, that without
them, no one would have ever dreamed
that there were successive epochs in
the formation of the globe."
6
James Hutton
Uniformitarianism
• James Hutton 1726-1797
1726-1797
Founder of modern geology
• The idea that the forces that shaped the world in
the past are still at work today.
Uniformitarianism in the philosophy of science,
Uniformitarianism,
science
is the assumption that the natural processes
operating in the past are the same as those that
can be observed operating in the present. Its
methodological significance is frequently
summarized in the statement: "The present is
the key to the past."
Rise of Geology
• 1830 Charles Lyell
• Wrote “Principles of Geology”
• 1st meticulous documentation of the antiquity of
planet earth
Age of the Earth??
• Modern geologists and geophysicists
consider the age of the Earth to be
around 4.54 billion years (4.54 × 109
][ ] This age has been determined
years) [[1][2]
years).
by radiometric age dating of meteorite
material and is consistent with the ages of
the oldest-known terrestrial and lunar
samples.
Charles Darwin
• 1809-1882
Charles Darwin
• Grandfather
– Erasmus Darwin: physician, philosopher, poet
• Believe that all creatures descended from a
common ancestor, but the mechanism of change
was obscure
obscure.
• Father
– Robert Darwin: physician, devoutly religious
• Sent Charles to Edinburgh University to study
medicine. He feared that Charles would turn into
an “idle sporting man” who would spend too much
time shooting and fishing.
7
Charles Darwin
• College drop-out
• Transferred to Cambridge University and
received
i d hi
his d
degree iin Th
Theology.
l
• A professor at Cambridge arranged for
Darwin to be appointed “naturalist” on the
H.M.S. Beagle
Leonard Jenyns
Leonard Jenyns
• The first choice for the Beagle naturalist
was Leonard Jenyns. Jenyns declined the
position, and Darwin was a substitute
selection for the post.
• His diary entry for 1831 records "This
year I had the offer of accompanying
Capt. Fitzroy, as Naturalist, in the
Beagle, on his voyage to survey the
coasts of S.America, afterwards going
round the globe:”
The Beagle
• He went to St. John's College,
Cambridge in 1818. Jenyns took his
degree in 1822, became a Fellow of the
Linnean Society and of the Cambridge
Philosophical Society and with
Henslow set up that Societies Museum.
• Darwin’s father thought the voyage a
waste of his son's time and refused
permission. Dejected, Charles went to
Maer for partridge shooting with his uncle.
Charles' hopes were revived when his
uncle came out in favour of the voyage,
and stated that the voyage would shape
character and could ready him for a
profession, as "Natural History... is very
suitable to a Clergyman."
Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
• Though Darwin had no degree in science,
he was described as possessing ”an
enlarged curiosity”.
• The voyage
y g of the Beagle
g was a 5 yyear
long world cruise.
• Darwin became convinced that different
species were related. Species were not
immutable and were capable of
transformation…but how???
• A mechanism for transformation was the
k iissue:
key
– October 3, 1838 read Thomas Malthus for
amusement:
8
Thomas Malthus
Populations tend to
increase geometrically
unless constrained
Changes that favored
an individual would
allow it to prosper as
compared with others
not possessing these
new properties
This led to the idea of
the survival of the
fittest!
Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
• 1842 wrote a 35 page abstract of his
theory
• 1846 extended his abstract to 230 pages,
pages
and put it down for 10 years
• Over this interval he published 2,000
pages on the biology of barnacles in four
monographs.
Alfred Wallace
1832-1913
• 1856-1858 began to work on Natural
Selection again
• J
June 8
8, 1858 while
hil working
ki on th
the 11th
chapter on the subject of pigeons he
received a letter from Alfred Wallace that
included a 12 page summary of the
mechanism of evolution.
Charles Darwin
• With 15 months Darwin had produced his
long delayed book.
• At 502 pages “On the origin of Species by
Means of Natural Selection”
Selection was a
pamphlet relative to his initial plans.
• Published November 24, 1859.
Charles Darwin
• Why did Darwin publish when he did?
– He didn’t want to be scooped by Wallace
– Why did Darwin wait so long to publish his
book?
• He did not want to upset Emma.
– The first printing of 1,250 copies sold out the
first day.
9
Darwin’s Beliefs
• Darwin was a theist, and believed in the
existence of God.
• He studied Anglican theology with the aim of
becoming a clergyman.
• He
H stated
t t d that
th t ““science
i
h
has nothing
thi tto do
d with
ith
Christ”.
• Following the death of his daughter, Anne, he
lost his faith.
– Cb: there is no despair more profound than that
evoked by the loss of a child.
Darwin
• Darwin published the word evolved…it is the
last word of his book.
• “There is grandeur in this view of life, with its
severall powers, h
having
i b
been originally
i i ll b
breathed
th d
into a few forms or into one; and that whilst this
planet has gone cycling on according to the
fixed laws of gravity, from so simple a beginning
endless forms most beautiful and wonderful
have been, and are being evolved.”
Darwin
• Did not publish the word evolution.
• Evolution was coined by Albrecht von
Haller to describe the theory that embryos
grew from preformed homunculi enclosed
in the egg or sperm. All future generation
had been created in the gonads of Adam
and Eve.
• Evolvere: (Latin) to unroll.
The Idea of Evolution
• Emerged from within the Church:
– A student of theology: Charles Darwin
– An Augustinian Priest: Gregor Mendal
10