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24. History of Life on Earth
History of Life on Earth

24. History of Life on Earth

History of Life on Earth

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Textbook Question
Fossilization continues even today. If you wanted to increase the probability that your deceased favorite pet would become fossilized, what actions would you take? a. Place the corpse in an environment where decomposition is rapid (such as a forest). b. Place the corpse in an environment where decomposition is slow (such as a swamp or bog). c. Place the corpse in an environment where there are plenty of rocks (such as a boulder field). d. Place the corpse in an environment where plenty of oxygen is available (such as in a mountain stream).
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Textbook Question
In the early 1800s, French naturalist Jean Baptiste Lamarck suggested that the best explanation for the relationship of fossils to current organisms is that life evolves. He proposed that by using or not using its body parts, an individual may change its traits and then pass those changes on to its offspring. He suggested, for instance, that the ancestors of the giraffe had lengthened their necks by stretching higher and higher into the trees to reach leaves. Evaluate Lamarck's hypotheses from the perspective of present-day scientific knowledge.
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Textbook Question

Advocates of 'scientific creationism' and 'intelligent design' lobby school districts for such things as a ban on teaching evolution, equal time in science classes to teach alternative versions of the origin and history of life, or disclaimers in textbooks stating that evolution is 'just a theory.' They argue that it is only fair to let students evaluate both evolution and the idea that all species were created by God as the Bible relates or that, because organisms are so complex and well adapted, they must have been created by an intelligent designer. Do you think that alternative views of evolution should be taught in science courses? Why or why not?

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Textbook Question
SCIENTIFIC THINKING When Stanley Miller's experiment was published in 1953, his results made global headlines. The general public thought Miller had answered the question of how life on Earth began by creating life in a test tube. However, scientists understood that Miller's experiment was neither a final answer nor a recipe for life. Rather, it was the first test of a long-standing hypothesis about the origin of life. Write an essay describing how the process of science progresses over time toward understanding how nature works.
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