STSC Exam 1: Evolution and Society questions with complete solutions

great chain of being Correct Answer-a hierarchical structure that distinguishes all things linearly based on medieval Christian beliefs that God intended for such order to exist in his world. God is at the top, angels, planets, kings, nobles, commoners, animals, plants, stones, metals, elements. Before adopted by medieval Christians, probably derived from philosophers like Aristotle and Plato. The natural order was present in society in terms of class and status, with exemplary challenges to the concept being the French Revolution. fixity of species Correct Answer-a creationist concept that proposes that organisms do not change over time because each and every specie is perfectly adapted (from God). Not scientific, because evidence in favor of evolution is far more vast than any evidence that supports fixity of the species. Carl Linnaeus, like many biologists of his time, accepted fixity of the species (unlike Georges Buffon). transmutation of species Correct Answer-19th c. theory preceded Darwin's theory of natural selection, Jean Baptiste Lamarck used the French term "transformisme" in his 1809 "Philosophie Zoologique" publication about Lamarckian evolution theory. Lamarck did not believe all things had a common ancestor, but rather that species were continuously created by spontaneous generation driven by an innate life force or fluid advancing in a linear pattern of complexity (related to the great chain of being). One species wa