Evaluate evolutionary explanations

Supplied materials

• All measurements and observations below are supplied classroom examples. They are not data from actual learners or a claim about a particular real site.
• Paper or a browser document for a labeled drawing, table or explanation.
• Worked problem inputs: An individual becomes stronger through training, but offspring allele frequencies are unchanged. Explain why this is not selection-driven population evolution.
• Assessment case 1: Training makes one model organism stronger, but offspring allele frequencies do not change. What is warranted? Which inference or prediction is best supported?
• Assessment case 2: Which scientific label fits the specifically described step or feature? Supplied case: Animal learns a new route.
• Assessment case 3: Which scientific label fits the specifically described step or feature? Supplied case: Animal decides to evolve a needed gene.
• Assessment case 4: Which scientific label fits the specifically described step or feature? Supplied case: Migration predicts new alleles arriving with migrants.
• Assessment case 5: Which scientific label fits the specifically described step or feature? Supplied case: Single organism acclimates to temperature.
• Assessment case 6: Small populations with no measured trait advantage show different random-sample frequency shifts. What fits? Which inference or prediction is best supported?

Learn the idea

An explanation should connect inherited variation, reproduction and time. Individual learning or deliberate bodily change is not population evolution by natural selection. Alternatives must fit the supplied evidence.

Population explanation means frequency changes across generations. Individual response means one organism changes during life. Purpose claim means organism supposedly chooses inherited change. Testable alternative means another mechanism with specified evidence.

For the supplied mechanism problem, An individual becomes stronger through training, but offspring allele frequencies are unchanged. Explain why this is not selection-driven population evolution. Training is an individual-life response. Natural-selection explanation requires heritable variation and differential reproduction producing population change across generations; those conditions are not supplied.

1. Read the supplied problem and mark the structures, processes or quantities named: An individual becomes stronger through training, but offspring allele frequencies are unchanged. Explain why this is not selection-driven population evolution.
2. Draw the relevant boundary, pathway or comparison and label it using the scientific ideas above.
3. Write a causal explanation or calculation, showing how each observation supports the result.
4. Compare your reasoning with the worked solution; name a condition that would change or limit the inference.

Check your reasoning

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Take it further

New case: a random founder group has a different allele frequency than its source population. Expected: sampling-driven drift can explain the difference; useful-looking frequency change alone does not demonstrate selection.

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