Thursday, October 28, 2010

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Historical Influences on Darwin

1. I believe that Sir Charles Lyell had the biggest influence on Darwin and his development of on his theory f natural selection.
2. Sir Charles Lyell popularized the idea of uniformitarian which proved the earth was very old and has been around for a long time. He believed that geology could become a science on its own and not be tied to the Bible. Lyell wanted to prove that the earth didnt just form from major natural disasters but over time by the levels of the sea and tectonic plates. Lyell made geology what it is today.
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/_0_0/history_12
3. There are many ways which Lyell could have influenced Darwin on his findings. Darwins thought that people do not evolove but populations do. Lyell always thought about the big picture, people in his time thought landmarks on the land such as mountains were formed by a volcano erupting and he looked back to find it happened over time, like Darwin with evolution. Lyell found that things happen over a time not overnight and Darwin followed this idea.
4. Darwin was a great scientist and would have still developed the idea of natural selection. I believe that Darwin would have developed this theory with any person as his influence. Lyell forced Darwin to look at the big picture of things but Darwin found how living things evolve and how there is not an over population of certain species.
5. At the time of Darwin was alive to go against the church was a big mistake and Darwin essentially was going against the church at the time. Darwin kept most of his findings to himself, close friends and relatives. When creating his book he was nervous to get it published because of all of the ridicule that could harm not only to him but his family and friends as well.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Scientific Method

1. It is possible that this student is not getting enough sleep at night to be awake during each class time. The student could stay up late doing homework for this class and figures as long as he shows up he will pass this class. Also many students work and this student could stay up late working.
2. I would test this hypothesis by asking the student what time they go to bed at night. Also follow up to see really what time the student goes to sleep to see if there is something that keeps the student awake at night. If the student goes to bed early enough to get at least seven hours of sleep and stays awake in class this would support my hypothesis. The hypothesis would be falsified if the student came into class and still fell asleep.
3. An example of an untestable, unfalsifiable would be the student was hypnotized at a young age to fall asleep everyday at the same time.