Term | Definition |
organelle | A membrane-bound body that regulates some function of the eukaryotic cell. |
Albertus Magnus | c. 1200–1280) Dominican Archbishop and philosopher, known as a teacher to St. Thomas Aquinas. |
Aristotle | (384–322 BC) A Greek philosopher who identified four elements: earth, air, fire, and water. |
Francis Bacon | (1561–1626) A philosopher who advocated experimentalism as a way to verify and rigorously test all things. |
Roger Bacon | (1214–1294) A philosopher and proponent of experimental science who urged people to reject religious dogma and “look at the world”. |
catastrophism | The theory, proposed by George Cuvier, that the earth’s landscape is shaped by global catastrophes.
Cuvier, Georges |
Charles Darwin | (1809–1882) The English naturalist who developed the theory of evolution by natural selection based on observations made on a trip around the world on the H.M.S. Beagle. |
Galileo Galilei | (1564–1642) A mathematician that advocated the view of Copernicus that the Earth is round and revolves around the sun. |
geology | The study of the history of the earth, especially as recorded in rocks. |
gradualism | The hypothesis that major geologic structures are the cumulative result of slow, continuous processes. |
James Hutton | (1726–1797) Scottish geologist who proposed the idea of gradualism to explain changes in the earth’s surface. This idea states that major geologic features of the earth are the cumulative result of continuous but slow processes. |
Charles Lyell | (1797–1875) Scottish geologist who proposed the theory called uniformitarianism. This idea states that geological structures are the result of slow gradual processes that operate in the present day. |
John Ray | (1627–1705) Naturalist who noted that fossils were the remnants of once living organisms. |
scientific method | A systematic approach to answering a question. The steps include:
making observations
forming a hypothesis
designing an experiment
gathering data
drawing a conclusion |
Thomas Aquinas | (1224–1274) Theologian. Made the distinction between natural truth and revealed truth. |
uniformitarianism | The idea that geologic structures result from uniform and gradual processes. This idea was proposed by James Hutton and later by Charles Lyell. The term itself was coined by William Whewell in 1832. |
James Usher | (1581–1656) Archbishop who declared, based on biblical interpretation, that the Earth was created in 4004 B.C. |
adaptation | An aspect of structure, physiology, or behavior that increases an organism’s chance of survival and reproductive success. |
binomial | A two-part (genus, species) Latin name given to all species. |
binomial nomenclature | The system in which all species are given a two-part Latin name. The first part of the name refers to the genus and the second to the species. |
binomial nomenclature | The system in which all species are given a two-part Latin name. The first part of the name refers to the genus and the second to the species. |
biogeography | The study of the past and present distribution of individual species and entire communities. |
Georges Buffon | (1707–1788) The French naturalist who proposed in his work, Histoire Naturelle (Natural History), that organisms evolve, or change, over time. |
inheritance of acquired characteristics | A model of evolution that states that traits that are acquired during an organism's lifetime can be passed on to that organism's offspring. |
Jean Baptiste Lamarack | (1744–1829) French naturalist who first presented a functional mechanism describing evolution. His ideas incorporated the use and disuse of body parts and inheritance of acquired characteristics. |
Carolus Linnaeus | (1707–1778) Swedish physician and botanist who developed a taxonomic system for the identification and classification of species. |
niche | The role of a species in its community, including an organism’s adaptations, resources, and trophic interactions with other organisms. |
use and disuse | The “acquired characters” portion of the idea of evolution through inheritance of acquired characters. The phrase represents the idea that the organs an organism uses will become stronger and more functional while those that are not used will deteriorate. |
vestigial structure | A body part that is degenerate or imperfectly developed in comparison to one more fully developed in closely related species. |
artificial selection | The process by which desirable traits are selected for breeding in plants and animals. |
fossil record | The remains or imprints of plants, animals, and other organisms preserved in rock. |
inheritance | The passage of characteristics from generation to generation. |
natural selection | The differential success in reproduction of different phenotypes resulting from the interaction of organisms with their environment. |
absolute dating | A method for determining the age of fossils using radioactive isotopes. |
amphibians | A class of vertebrates that includes frogs, salamanders, and caecilians. |
Cambrian period | The first period of the Paleozoic era, beginning about 570 million years ago and ending about 510 million years ago. |
Carboniferous | The fifth period of the Paleozoic era of the geological time scale, beginning about 360 million years ago and ending about 290 million years ago. |
cladogenesis | A pattern of evolutionary change that occurs when new species branch from existing ones. |
cladogram | A phylogenetic tree based on evolutionary relationships between organisms. |
coevolution | Reciprocal evolution involving successive changes in the adaptations of two or more ecologically interdependent species. |
Cretaceous period | The third period of the Mesozoic era on the geological time scale that began about 145 million years ago and ended about 65 million years ago. |
Devonian period | The fourth period of the Paleozoic era in the geological time scale, beginning about 410 million years ago and ending about 360 million years ago. |
half-life | The number of years required for half of an isotope to decay into another element; t1/2. |
Hyracotherium | The earliest ancestor that the horse is known to have descended from. Hyracotherum was small, had teeth for feeding on woody plants, and had four toes. |
isotope | An alternative form of an element, varying in the number of neutrons in the nucleus. |
mass extinction | A geological time period characterized by an extinction rate much higher than average. |
Merychippus | An ancestor of the horse, characterized by its larger size, teeth for grazing, and hooves with two vestigial toes. |
Mesohippus | An ancestor of the horse that had three toes, flat teeth for grazing, and was larger in size than Hyracotherium. |
Ordovician period | The second period of the Paleozoic era of the geologic time scale, beginning about 510 million years ago and ending about 440 million years ago. |
Permian period | The sixth period of the Paleozoic era in the geological time scale that begins 360 million years ago and ends 290 million years ago. |
Precambrian era | The geological time period between the origin of the Earth (about 4.5 billion years ago) and the Cambrian period (570 million years ago). |
Silurian period | The third period of the Paleozoic era of the geological time scale, beginning about 440 million years ago and ending about 410 million years ago |
Silurian period | The third period of the Paleozoic era of the geological time scale, beginning about 440 million years ago and ending about 410 million years ago. |
Tertiary period | The first period of the Cenozoic era of the geological time scale. |
transition fossil | A fossil of an organism that seems to present a direct linkage between an ancestral and a descended species. |
Triassic | |