Exercises

I. Word-study.

Say what is meant by remarkable, dismay, a reclusive life, traits, tenable, descent, offspring, random variation , orchid, bouts of poor health, the same stir.

II. Comprehension check-up.

1) Answer the following questions.

1. What education did Charles Darwin get?

2. What was the greatest event of his life, lasting from December 1831 to October 1836? Why?

3. When was Darwin’s main work on species published?

4. Where did he present the topic of sexual selection?

5. What are the weak points in Darwin’s theory Descent of Man?

2) Choose the statement you think to be correct.

1. Darwin was born

a) in the family of brilliant lawyers

b) in the family of notable doctors

c) in the family of a poor leather worker

2. Darwin suffered from

a) hypochondria

b) cancer

c) tuberculosis

3. In Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication Darwin investigated

a) the structure and distribution of coral reefs

b) artificial selection

c) the physical laws of muscle contraction

III. Divide the text into logical parts and state the general idea of each part. Carl linnaeus (1707-78)

L innaeus was Sweden's greatest naturalist in the 18th century and the father of modern biological taxonomy - the classifying of living things, plant or animal. He identified every organism by two names, the first representing its genus and the second its species., In his lifetime he achieved wide fame for this simple taxonomic scheme, which is known to be flawed in some of its criteria of classification but is still the starting point for modern versions. His Systema Naturae was first published in 1735 and in his lifetime went through another eleven editions of ever increasing length.

In 1732 he journeyed to Lapland, an unhospitable and largely uncharted region, returning with many new species of plants and a great enthusiasm for the task of identifying and classifying them. After a three year spell in Holland (with visits to France and England) he was appointed to a chair of medicine at Uppsala University where he spent the remainder of his career teaching natural history. Students flocked to his lectures. Many travelled widely and brought back botanical specimens. Naturalists from all over the world came to see him and for the last twenty years of his life Uppsala became the centre for European botany. When he died all Sweden mourned, and many regretted the purchase of his fabulous collection of specimens and books by the English naturalist Sir Joseph Banks. This treasure formed the basis on which London's Linnaean Society was founded in 1788, the venue at which Charles Darwin's theory of biological evolution was to be announced.

Linnaeus was a firm believer in the biblical doctrine of the creation. He pictured the original Garden of Eden as a small island near the equator and saw a close parallel between his own work of naming species and the task given to Adam in the book of Genesis. Observing the receding of tide levels around Sweden he imagined this to be a worldwide feature that had allowed the original animals to multiply and migrate. He believed firmly in the fixity of species - the notion that all species had remained constant since the creation - commenting that there are as many species in existence as were brought forth by the Supreme Being in the beginning ... and consequently there cannot be more species now than at the moment of creation.

However, when confronted with evidence of a plant which had deviated from one class into another, he acknowledged the possibility that new species could come into existence within the plant kingdom. But he made no concession to the notion of natural mutability between species of animals. His work of classifying and naming generally hardened the belief in the unchangingness of God-created life forms.

Some biologists, however, regarded such classifications and divisions as rather artificial. They looked at the 17th century notion of a Great Chain of Being and saw in it the minute differences between neighbouring elements rather than separate categories. They criticized too the morphological basis of his scheme - using bodily form as the guiding principle (the form of the sexual organs in the case of plants) - which made it seem bleak and static. From the University of Uppsala the scene now changes to the Jardin du Roi in Paris where Linnaeus' contemporary critic and rival, Le Comte de Buffon, held sway.