Science B-16: The History of Life
Midterm Exam
March 25, 1999

1.  ________  (10 points)
 
2.  ________  (8 points)
 
3.  ________  (14 points)
 
4.  ________  (16 points)
 
5.  ________  (10 points)
 
6.  ________  (6 points)

7.  ________  (14 points)

8.  ________  (12 points)

9.  ________  (10 points)
 

________  TOTAL  (100 points)
 
 
 

      NAME  ______________________________

      SECTION ______________________________
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

1. In 1982, Dale Russell, a noted paleontologist from Canada, presented a model of a “dinosauroid” – a bipedal reptilian descendant of dinosaurs with a human-sized brain.  This animal was presented as the likely outcome of evolution if the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event had not wiped out the dinosaurs.  With your knowledge of the contingency of evolution, discuss the likelihood that such a dinosauroid would have evolved in these altered circumstances.

2. A noted Swiss clockmaker has invented a revolutionary new type of clock.  This clock attempts to keep track of time by counting the number of times the person to which it is attached thinks about vanilla ice cream.

a. Why would this scheme not work well as a means of measuring absolute time?

b. Would it work as a means of measuring relative time?  Why or why not?







3. The sneetches (Order Sneetchia) are bipedal mammals with stars on their chests.  Recently, the group has received considerable attention due to the long and relatively complete fossil record unearthed by Dr. Seuss, the renowned sneetch paleontologist.  Seuss has found that it is possible to clearly discern and measure the size of the stars on their chests from the mid-Cretaceous to the present (see figure).  Dr. Seuss claims that the star has increased in size through time, reflecting the adaptive superiority of sneetches with larger stars (i.e., greater mating success, greater fright value to potential predators).  You have been asked to comment on Dr. Seuss’s claim.  Please note that each point in the figure represents the average star size of a distinct species within the sneetch lineage.
 

a) Briefly provide two reasons why his data do not necessarily show a directional trend towards  increased star size through time.  Be sure to pay attention to both statistical and evolutionary interpretations of the trend.







b) What better explanation might there be for the apparent average increase in star size?







4. The following quotation is the most famous passage in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations:

He [an actor in the world of laissez-faire economics] generally indeed neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. … He intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.

a) How does Darwin use the concept of the invisible hand in formulating his principle of natural selection?







b) In The Origin of Species, Darwin consciously avoids using the term “evolution”.  Explain what features of Darwin’s theory led him to reject this word.
 
 

5. While shopping at Star Market, you notice an unusual trend while reading the nutritional information labels on the selection of frozen fried potato products.  Being an aspiring empiricist, you construct the following table to organize your observations:

Product                         Serving Size                     Fat Per Serving
Hash Browns         8 oz. (about 30 browns)             27 g
Tater Tots             8 oz. (about 20 tots)                   19 g
Steak Fries            8 oz. (about 10 fries)                    9 g
Potato Wedges      8 oz. (about 4 wedges)                 4 g

The more individual bits of potato it takes to make 8 oz (i.e. The smaller each bit of  potato is), the more fat there is per serving.  This relationship occurs despite the fact that each type of  potato has the same ingredients.  Based on what you know about the  effects of size differences, what physical property of the potato pieces must be  controlling their fat content?  Why does the relative fat content go down as the bits of  potato get bigger?







6. Your friend who works in an antique store gives you a magic crystal ball.  With this crystal ball, you can see backwards in time to any past geological period.  You decide to astound your friends with the depth of knowledge you have gained in Science B-16.  Do so below by naming the era and environment represented by each of the following scenes:

a. Giant tree-sized horsetails cover the landscape, while insects and amphibians scurry around their bases.







b. You see archaeocyathids and trilobites.







c. Large cone-shaped bivalves have built a mound on the seafloor, and you see gastropods and fish going about their business.







7. This Theory being chiefly Philosophical, Reason is to be our first Guide; and where that falls short, or any other just occasion offers itself, we may receive further light and confirmation from the Sacred writings.  Both these are to be lookt upon as of Divine Original, God is the Author of both; He that made the Scripture made also our Faculties, and ‘twere a reflection upon the Divine Veracity, for the one or the other to be false when rightly us’d.  We must therefore be tender and careful of opposing these to one another, because that is, in effect, to oppose God to himself.
- Thomas Burnet, The Sacred Theory of the Earth, Book 1, Chap. 1, p. 26.

Burnet’s history of the Earth relies on both the facts presented in Scripture and the human power of Reason.  Or does it?  The Bible describes divine action repeatedly (the Flood, Genesis 6-8; the Day the Sun Stood Still, Joshua 10:13; Water to Wine, John 2:1-11; etc.).  Yet Burnet refuses to include the direct interaction of God in the Earth’s day to day workings.  How are these reported instances of Divine Intervention reconciled in Burnet’s view of the physical world?  Why do we consider his theory of the Earth is so methodologically “modern?”







8. The frontispiece of Lyell’s Principles of Geology shows the pillars of the Temple of Puzzuoli in Italy.  These pillars must have been above sea level when this temple was built in ancient Roman times.  These pillars were also above sea level in 1830 when the illustration was made.  However, a remarkable feature on these pillars is the presence of marine boring mollusks at about 4-7 meters above the present floor of the temple.  Why would Lyell have considered the history of these pillars important enough to make this figure the frontispiece of his book?  Explain how this example illuminates the second uniformity of process and the third uniformity of rate.







9. Reproduce the geological time scale, including all eons, eras, and periods, and the epochs of the Cenozoic.  Give the absolute ages for the three era boundaries.