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The tree of life or universal tree of life is a metaphor, conceptual model, and research tool used to explore the evolution of life and describe the relationships between organisms, both living and extinct, as described in a famous passage in Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859). [1]
The first English use of the expression "meaning of life" appears in Thomas Carlyle's Sartor Resartus (1833–1834), book II chapter IX, "The Everlasting Yea". [1]Our Life is compassed round with Necessity; yet is the meaning of Life itself no other than Freedom, than Voluntary Force: thus have we a warfare; in the beginning, especially, a hard-fought battle.
Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life is a 1995 book by the philosopher Daniel Dennett, in which the author looks at some of the repercussions of Darwinian theory. The crux of the argument is that, whether or not Darwin's theories are overturned, there is no going back from the dangerous idea that design (purpose or what ...
Universal evolution is a theory of evolution formulated by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Julian Huxley that describes the gradual development of the Universe from subatomic particles to human society, considered by Teilhard as the last stage.
The first universal common ancestor (FUCA) is a proposed non-cellular entity that was the earliest organism with a genetic code capable of biological translation of RNA molecules into peptides to produce proteins. [1] [2] Its descendants include the last universal common ancestor (LUCA) and every modern cell.
The definition of life has long been a challenge for scientists and philosophers. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] This is partially because life is a process, not a substance. [ 5 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ] This is complicated by a lack of knowledge of the characteristics of living entities, if any, that may have developed outside Earth.
When two or more species evolve in company with each other, one species adapts to changes in other species. This type of evolution often happens in species that have symbiotic relationships. For example, predator-prey coevolution, this is the most common type of co-evolution.
Objections to evolution have been raised since evolutionary ideas came to prominence in the 19th century. When Charles Darwin published his 1859 book On the Origin of Species, his theory of evolution (the idea that species arose through descent with modification from a single common ancestor in a process driven by natural selection) initially met opposition from scientists with different ...