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The mediaeval great chain of being as a staircase, implying the possibility of progress: [1] Ramon Lull's Ladder of Ascent and Descent of the Mind, 1305. Alternatives to Darwinian evolution have been proposed by scholars investigating biology to explain signs of evolution and the relatedness of different groups of living things.
Evolutionary psychology of language – Study of the evolutionary history of language assuming it is a result of Darwinian adaptation; Evolutionary psychology of parenting; Evolutionary psychology of religion – Study of religious belief using evolutionary psychology principles; Theoretical foundations of evolutionary psychology; Evolutionary ...
The idea of a tree of life arose from ancient notions of a ladder-like progression from lower into higher forms of life (such as in the Great Chain of Being).Early representations of "branching" phylogenetic trees include a "paleontological chart" showing the geological relationships among plants and animals in the book Elementary Geology, by Edward Hitchcock (first edition: 1840).
Humans determine which animal or plant will reproduce and which of the offspring will survive; thus, they determine which genes will be passed on to future generations. The process of artificial selection has had a significant impact on the evolution of domestic animals. For example, people have produced different types of dogs by controlled ...
Spontaneous generation, the first naturalistic theory of abiogenesis, goes back to Aristotle and ancient Greek philosophy, and continued to have support in Western scholarship until the 19th century. [15] The theory held that "lower" animals are generated by decaying organic substances.
Edward Hitchcock's fold-out paleontological chart in his 1840 Elementary Geology. Although tree-like diagrams have long been used to organise knowledge, and although branching diagrams known as claves ("keys") were omnipresent in eighteenth-century natural history, it appears that the earliest tree diagram of natural order was the 1801 "Arbre botanique" (Botanical Tree) of the French ...
The Earth was formed at 4.54 Gya, and the earliest evidence of life on Earth dates from at least 3.8 Gya from Western Australia. Some studies have suggested that fossil micro-organisms may have lived within hydrothermal vent precipitates dated 3.77 to 4.28 Gya from Quebec, soon after ocean formation 4.4 Gya during the Hadean.
While bubbles made mostly of water tend to burst quickly, oily bubbles are much more stable. The phospholipid, the primary material of cell membranes, is an example of a common oily compound prevalent in the prebiotic seas. [6] Both of these options require the presence of massive amounts of chemicals and organic material in order to form cells.