Title: Why do giraffes have long necks? Modern giraffes have long necks because their ancestors’ necks became longer as they stretched to reach leaves high in trees. (Allen, 2014) Scientific Conception Many people have come to believe overtime that animals change during their lifetime in order to adapt to their surroundings. For example, Allen explains, people may believe giraffes may have started with shorter necks and then over time, as they stretched further and further to get to the leaves and branches, their necks became longer (Allen, 2014). If this were repeated generation after generation, this would explain why giraffes now have very long necks. The example given above comes from the idea of Lamarckians, which is not looked …show more content…
The lesson would begin by having students look at the physical characteristics of different plants and animals. Once they do this they would be asked to link the characteristics to the animal or plants habitat. Then they would be able to find out why the characteristics may be necessary in order for the plants or animals to survive in their environment. Once the students do this, they can begin to look at the idea of natural selection and how it affects different plants and animals in their environment (Allen, 2014). For example, the giraffe’s necks were not stretched out over time, instead, the long neck giraffe’s are the ones that survived because they were able to adapt to their new environment and the short giraffes were not. In order to help students understand the wrong idea of Lamarck, which described how giraffe’s necks become longer because their ancestors stretched their necks, the students would first need to understand that genes cannot change from one giraffe to the next. When a new giraffe is born they receive the same genes as their parents, they cannot receive a trait from their parents if it is only due to a life event. This could be explained by giving them an example such as, if a baby’s mom and dad both have blonde hair but the mom colors her hair brown, the baby will not be born with brown hair, it will still have blonde hair because those are the parents genes. Once the student understands this idea, they can begin to understand the misconception that giraffe’s necks have become longer over time due to having to stretch higher in order to reach their
Issac Leib Peretz once said, “Time is change, transformation, evolution. Time is eternal sprouting, blossoming, the eternal tomorrow.” In PBS’s Documentary Great Transformations, the transformation from the first living organism to what we are today was discussed and how most organisms have very similar genes and characteristics. How fish used to colonize land and land mammals evolved to sea creatures.
Lamarckism can be used to explain the evolution of polar bears from brown bears, specifically skin and fur color. Lamarck’s theory stipulated that a characteristic (brown or white fur color) which is used more by an organism will become stronger. One that is not used disappears eventually. Change occurs when polar bears want to change. If a polar bear’s phenotype changes during life in order to adapt its environment, those changes are passed onto its offspring. Therefore, these changes are inherited, meaning that the stronger characteristics (brown fur) are passed down to many generations. As a result of this, the less effective characteristics (white fur) will be slowly reduced in frequencies and stronger
Any inherited, genetic change in a population which takes place over several generations is defined as Biological evolution. Darwin and Lamarck have contributed majorly to the evolutionary theory. Although Lamarck’s theory was unsupported, he probably provided inspiration to Darwin and many other enthused scientists.
Short stories and fables give essential insight on life and convey a deeper understanding of the basic fundamental and intellectual lessons of life. Over the ages many stories and fables have been told from generation to generation to help people understand and grow intellectually/mentally to live a life which is one with yourself and everyone in relation to you. One such story which is deep in its morals is The Giraffe by Mauro Senesi. This story portrays a strong message, and when I read this book I was deeply affected emotionally as well as intellectually. This story helped me understand how accepting the most subtle change to the most significant change is important, it helped me understand
...ng and large period of time that is showed by others. This can be concluded that Darwin thinks and believe that changes and pre-existing factors are caused by our ancestors.
Evolutionary theorists believed that development simply reproduces what was present in the previous generation and will be unchanged in perpetuity. Humans, however, change in many ways. They develop physical and psychological characteristics, each having its own set of causes and development. Our physical appearances and gender are a result of genetic influence.
The second of Tinbergen’s questions Phylogeny looks at the evolutionary explanations of development, as opposed to just how behaviour has adapted, including mutations in response to environmental changes. Some of these mutations remain in species even after necessity has gone, and can influence future characteristics of that species. The third of Tinbergen’s questions looks at Causation,...
The second part of the theory of evolution is gradualism. Gradualism is the idea that it takes many generations to produce a substantial evolutionary change. An example of this change is birds gaining the ability to fly.
The Pre-K and Kindergarten class studied habitats of various animals and insects. They were given examples and tough how the animals made their homes. The students built a bird house as their project and as something to take home to remind them of what they learned. Finally they went on a field trip to Legoland where they explored and built “habitats” for their families and the Lego people. The first and second grade class learned about marine life and the ocean. They built shoe box dioramas of coral reefs and created art projects depicting sea life as well as learning new facts about the ocean. The students got to go to the Aquarium for their field trip. Finally the third and fourth graders studied the rain forests and their ecosystems. The students built rainforest models and terrariums along with small group discussions on different ideas human intervention and conservation. They finished their week at the zoo where they studied different rainforest inhabitants in
With the studies that Charles Darwin obtained he published his first work, “The Origin of Species.” In this book he explained how for millions of years animals, and plants have evolved to better help their existence. Darwin reasoned that these living things had gradually changed over time to help themselves. The changes that he found seemed to have been during the process of reproduction. The traits which would help them survive became a dominant trait, while the weaker traits became recessive. A good example of what Darwin was trying to explain is shown in giraffes. Long-necked giraffes could reach the food on the trees, while the short-necked giraffes couldn’t. Since long necks helped the giraffes eat, short-necked giraffes died off from hunger. Because of this long-necks became a dominant trait in giraffes. This is what Charles Darwin would later call natural selection.
Many scientists in the past, such as Aristotle and Plato, believed that there were no changes in populations; however, other scientists, such as Darwin and Wallace, arose and argued that species inherit heritable traits from common ancestors and environmental forces drives out certain heritable traits that makes the species better suited to survive or be more “fit” for that environment. Therefore, species do change over a period of time and they were able to support their theory by showing that evolution does occur. There were four basic mechanisms of evolution in their theory: mutation, migration, genetic drift, and natural selection. Natural selection is the gradual process by which heritable traits that makes it more likely for an organism to survive and successfully reproduce increases, whereas there is a decline in those who do have those beneficial heritable traits (Natural Selection). For example, there is a decrease in rain which causes a drought in the finches’ environment. The seeds in the finches’ environment would not be soft enough for the smaller and weaker beak finches to break; therefore, they cannot compete with the larger and stronger beak finches for food. The larger and stronger beak finches has a heritable trait that helps them survive and reproduce better than others for that particular environment which makes them categorized under natural selection (Freeman, 2002).
On Darwin’s trip around the world he found something very interesting on the Galapagos Islands. On the isolated islands he found fourteen species of finches with very similar characteristics but they had some differences in their beaks, diet, body size and habitat. Darwin thought the birds had a common ancestor. He thought that some time back some finches arrived on the islands and the finches with the beaks that suited the islands conditions survived this happened on all the islands. When they had offspring the next generation would inherit the same beak. This is a great example of natural selection which was a contributor to how humans evolved. From this Darwin established his theory of natural selection and how slowly over time creatures...
In conclusion, Lamarck’s theory involves adaptations to create new variations, followed by the inheritance of these characteristics, while Darwin’s theory involves random hereditary variation first, followed by the selection of the variation. Genetics has disproven Lamarck’s theory on the basis that characteristics acquired during the lifetime of a parent are not passed onto the offspring. On the other hand, Darwin’s theory failed in explaining why a beneficial change-the loss of functionality of the appendix, for instance- can be passed generation after generation. However, Lamarck and Darwin both believed that life is continuously changing and that organisms change to be better suited to their environment (Mills 2004:119-121).
The Giraffe is one of the most interesting creatures on earth, it is the tallest land animal on the planet and it has the tallest neck among all creatures. It is originated in Africa and it inhabits the savannahs, grass lands and woodlands. Although it has thin legs, it has a very strong kick that can lead to fatal injuries to any animal that tries to prey on it, especially lions which are more likely to target giraffes than any other animals. The giraffe would fight with other giraffes using its neck rather than its legs because legs can be fatal and dominance in the giraffe family is only shown by using the neck. The giraffe’s appearances are similar to camels in terms of features such as hooves, tall legs and long tongues, and its body movements are also similar because both animals have 4 long legs.
Without evolution, and the constant ever changing environment, the complexity of living organisms would not be as it is. Evolution is defined as a process that results in heritable changes in a population spread over many generations (8).Scientists believe in the theory of evolution. This belief is based on scientific evidence that corroborates the theory of evolution. In Figure 1 the pictures of the skulls depict the sequence of the evolution of Homo-sapiens. As the figure shows, man has evolved from our common ancestor that is shared by homo-sapiens. The change of diet of homo-sapiens over time has thought to contribute to the change in jaw structure and overall skull shape.