Evolution and Biological Adaptation

Give the best summary of the fourth paragraph.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

With Charles Darwin’s popularisation of the concept of evolution, man became interested in his biological origins and affiliations. This interest was centred on man’s phylogenetic origins. Starting with the work on heredity of Gregor Mendel in the 1860s and the recognition of its significance in 1900, interest shifted to the problem of man’s ontogenetic origins. Mendel’s simple ‘laws of heredity’ came to be widely known and were uncritically assumed to apply to all human characteristics. Most physical characteristics, intelligence, and many aspects of personality were thought to operate as simple Mendelian unit characters in their transmission from parent to child. This belief stimulated an interest to eugenic movements that proposed to bring about race betterment through sterilization of the unfit and encouragement of marriage among the superior members of society. Many groups of people organised to promote such programmes. Feeble-mindedness, poverty, crime, and immorality were thought to be largely matters of poor heredity. Several studies of family lines were published that seemed to give considerable support to this general concept.
From 1900 to about 1920, there was an overemphasis on the role of heredity in producing these conditions. The fixity and certainty of hereditary determination were grossly overestimated, and the environmental contribution to intelligence, personality, morality, and crime was either ignored or underestimated. The one fundamental fact of logic—that correlation does not prove causation—was forgotten. Because certain traits follow family lines, it does not follow that they are necessarily inherited. There is a ‘social heredity’ involved in the transmission of many things from generation to generation, and it is easy to confuse its effects with those of biology heredity.
Starting in the 1920s and ‘30s there set in a reaction against the uncritical application of the simple Mendelian concepts to all human characteristics and the resulting disregard of the importance of environmental factors. The extreme hereditarians were accused of being mechanistic in their frame of reference, deterministic in their philosophy, and unscientific in their methods.
Behaviour trends, intellectual level, special talents, and temperament are not inherited as such, but heredity is certainly a factor in determining all of them. Genes affect behaviour indirectly through their influence on the structural development of the individual. Genes affect structural conditions which, in turn, influence function. Such complex things as feeble-mindedness, musical talent, mathematical aptitude, and criminality can hardly be inherited. However, the genes can be crucial factors in determining the development of the nervous system, the sensitivity of the ear, the discriminating ability of the eye, the length, diameter, and nature of the vocal cords, and as such things as the size and shape of the hands. (Sawrey and Telford in Education Psychology)

Summarise the third paragraph of the passage.

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

With Charles Darwin’s popularisation of the concept of evolution, man became interested in his biological origins and affiliations. This interest was centred on man’s phylogenetic origins. Starting with the work on heredity of Gregor Mendel in the 1860s and the recognition of its significance in 1900, interest shifted to the problem of man’s ontogenetic origins. Mendel’s simple ‘laws of heredity’ came to be widely known and were uncritically assumed to apply to all human characteristics. Most physical characteristics, intelligence, and many aspects of personality were thought to operate as simple Mendelian unit characters in their transmission from parent to child. This belief stimulated an interest to eugenic movements that proposed to bring about race betterment through sterilization of the unfit and encouragement of marriage among the superior members of society. Many groups of people organised to promote such programmes. Feeble-mindedness, poverty, crime, and immorality were thought to be largely matters of poor heredity. Several studies of family lines were published that seemed to give considerable support to this general concept.
From 1900 to about 1920, there was an overemphasis on the role of heredity in producing these conditions. The fixity and certainty of hereditary determination were grossly overestimated, and the environmental contribution to intelligence, personality, morality, and crime was either ignored or underestimated. The one fundamental fact of logic—that correlation does not prove causation—was forgotten. Because certain traits follow family lines, it does not follow that they are necessarily inherited. There is a ‘social heredity’ involved in the transmission of many things from generation to generation, and it is easy to confuse its effects with those of biology heredity.
Starting in the 1920s and ‘30s there set in a reaction against the uncritical application of the simple Mendelian concepts to all human characteristics and the resulting disregard of the importance of environmental factors. The extreme hereditarians were accused of being mechanistic in their frame of reference, deterministic in their philosophy, and unscientific in their methods.
Behaviour trends, intellectual level, special talents, and temperament are not inherited as such, but heredity is certainly a factor in determining all of them. Genes affect behaviour indirectly through their influence on the structural development of the individual. Genes affect structural conditions which, in turn, influence function. Such complex things as feeble-mindedness, musical talent, mathematical aptitude, and criminality can hardly be inherited. However, the genes can be crucial factors in determining the development of the nervous system, the sensitivity of the ear, the discriminating ability of the eye, the length, diameter, and nature of the vocal cords, and as such things as the size and shape of the hands. (Sawrey and Telford in Education Psychology)

What is the underlying idea of the passage?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

With Charles Darwin’s popularisation of the concept of evolution, man became interested in his biological origins and affiliations. This interest was centred on man’s phylogenetic origins. Starting with the work on heredity of Gregor Mendel in the 1860s and the recognition of its significance in 1900, interest shifted to the problem of man’s ontogenetic origins. Mendel’s simple ‘laws of heredity’ came to be widely known and were uncritically assumed to apply to all human characteristics. Most physical characteristics, intelligence, and many aspects of personality were thought to operate as simple Mendelian unit characters in their transmission from parent to child. This belief stimulated an interest to eugenic movements that proposed to bring about race betterment through sterilization of the unfit and encouragement of marriage among the superior members of society. Many groups of people organised to promote such programmes. Feeble-mindedness, poverty, crime, and immorality were thought to be largely matters of poor heredity. Several studies of family lines were published that seemed to give considerable support to this general concept.
From 1900 to about 1920, there was an overemphasis on the role of heredity in producing these conditions. The fixity and certainty of hereditary determination were grossly overestimated, and the environmental contribution to intelligence, personality, morality, and crime was either ignored or underestimated. The one fundamental fact of logic—that correlation does not prove causation—was forgotten. Because certain traits follow family lines, it does not follow that they are necessarily inherited. There is a ‘social heredity’ involved in the transmission of many things from generation to generation, and it is easy to confuse its effects with those of biology heredity.
Starting in the 1920s and ‘30s there set in a reaction against the uncritical application of the simple Mendelian concepts to all human characteristics and the resulting disregard of the importance of environmental factors. The extreme hereditarians were accused of being mechanistic in their frame of reference, deterministic in their philosophy, and unscientific in their methods.
Behaviour trends, intellectual level, special talents, and temperament are not inherited as such, but heredity is certainly a factor in determining all of them. Genes affect behaviour indirectly through their influence on the structural development of the individual. Genes affect structural conditions which, in turn, influence function. Such complex things as feeble-mindedness, musical talent, mathematical aptitude, and criminality can hardly be inherited. However, the genes can be crucial factors in determining the development of the nervous system, the sensitivity of the ear, the discriminating ability of the eye, the length, diameter, and nature of the vocal cords, and as such things as the size and shape of the hands. (Sawrey and Telford in Education Psychology)

Directions: Choose the most correct option out of the following: Which of the following is an example of an astonishing extremophile?

Extremophiles: Some environments are not good homes for most normal kinds of life. Places like that are called extreme environments. That doesn't mean that there isn't any life in extreme environments. Certain creatures can live and grow in extreme environments. Scientists have a special name for creatures that live in extreme environments. They are called extremophiles. The -phile in extremophile comes from a Greek word that means love. Extremophiles are creatures that love extreme environments. Most extremophiles are microbes. There are also a few types of larger creatures, like special types of shrimp and insects, which are also extremophiles. In the last few decades scientists have found extremophiles in places where they used to think life couldn't survive. Some extremophiles live in very hot or very cold environments. Others live in environments that have acids or radiation in them. When Earth was young, most environments on our planet were extreme compared to today. Environments on many other planets and moons within our Solar System and beyond are also extreme. Scientists hope that studying extremophiles will help us learn about early life on Earth and about evolution. They also hope we can learn about the chances for life on other planets by studying extremophiles. Scientists who study these sorts of things are called astrobiologists. Scientists use special names for extremophiles that live in different environments. Thermophiles live in hot places. Acidophiles can put up with strong acids. Xerophiles live in deserts and other dry places. Halophiles like it salty, while cryophiles (or psychrophiles) love the cold. Some creatures are extreme in more than one way. Microbes that live in acidic hot springs are both thermophiles and acidophiles. A few big big animals and plants also survive in really extreme environments. While they aren't exactly extremophiles, some of them do live in places that would kill most normal creatures. Camels can go for long periods without water in the dry deserts where they live. Emperor penguins somehow make it through cold Antarctic winters. Extreme plants, such as many types of cactus, also live in the heat and dryness of deserts. Strange tube worms grow in boiling hot water filled with strange chemicals near deep sea hydrothermal vents.

Which of the following are not the salient features of Charles Darwin theory? a) Organisms have limited capacity to reproduce. b) Each organism has to struggle for its day to day survival. c) Different individuals of a particular species have similar traits. d) Those organisms which are the fittest are able to survive, while others perish.

Match the following and choose the correct option given below.