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We should expect evolution to wander increasingly further from this level of complexity, but it does not imply that evolution is driven towards increasing complexity. In response to Gould's (1997) critique, Turney (2000) presents a computational model in which there is a largest-scale trend towards increasing evolutionary versatility.
The idea of evolution by natural selection was proposed by Charles Darwin in 1859, but evolutionary biology, as an academic discipline in its own right, emerged during the period of the modern synthesis in the 1930s and 1940s. [19] It was not until the 1980s that many universities had departments of evolutionary biology.
Charles Darwin's 1859 book, On the Origin of Species, convinced most biologists that evolution had occurred, but not that natural selection was its primary mechanism. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, variations of Lamarckism (inheritance of acquired characteristics), orthogenesis (progressive evolution), saltationism (evolution by jumps) and mutationism (evolution driven by mutations ...
Because evolutionary biology is the default scientific position, it is assumed that "scientists" or "biologists" are "evolutionists" unless specifically noted otherwise. [6] In the creation–evolution controversy , creationists often call those who accept the validity of the modern evolutionary synthesis "evolutionists" and the theory itself ...
Joseph L. Graves Jr. (born 1955) is an American evolutionary biologist and geneticist.He is a professor of biological science at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, and a former associate dean for research at the Joint School for Nanoscience and Nanoengineering, which is jointly administered by North Carolina A & T State University and UNC Greensboro.
Stephen Jay Gould (/ ɡ uː l d / GOOLD; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science.He was one of the most influential and widely read authors of popular science of his generation. [1]
[10] [11] The taxa "animal kingdom" (or kingdom Animalia) and "plant kingdom" (or kingdom Plantae) remain in use by some modern evolutionary biologists. The initial targets of Cavalier-Smith's classification, the protozoa were classified as members of the animal kingdom, [12] and many algae were regarded as part of the plant kingdom. With ...
This forms an important part of the evidence on which evolutionary theory rests, demonstrates that evolution does occur, and illustrates the processes that created Earth's biodiversity. It supports the modern evolutionary synthesis —the current scientific theory that explains how and why life changes over time.