Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
plants cannot grow. Such places are acid bogs and rocky outcrops.
Darlingtonia cal-
ifornica
is found on bogs and streambanks fed by cold mountain water in Northern
California.
Possible Explanations for Biodiversity and Adaptation
The question that biodiversity and adaptation pose is - how can we explain the origin
and diversity of all this complexity? Are some or all of this vast number of different
organisms related to one another or did they arise separately? Do organisms stay
constant in form once they have appeared or do they change over time? By what
mechanisms have organisms become so well adapted to their environments? How
can we try to answer these questions?
Applying Occam's razor, a good theory should describe one mechanism to
account for the two most distinctive aspects of life: the very large number of differ-
ent organisms that exist today, and the adaptation that each shows to the environment
in which it thrives. Three general hypotheses have been proposed at various times
to explain the diversity of life (Fig. 3.5).
Fig. 3.5
Creationism
- this is separate creationism, not to be confused with religious cre-
ationism, also known as creation science or intelligent design. Remember that we
are working within a naturalistic framework. This hypothesis supposes that each
