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On the Origin of Species (or, more completely, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life) [3] is a work of scientific literature by Charles Darwin that is considered to be the foundation 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 ...
Aristotle considered whether different forms could have appeared, only the useful ones surviving.. Several philosophers of the classical era, including Empedocles [1] and his intellectual successor, the Roman poet Lucretius, [2] expressed the idea that nature produces a huge variety of creatures, randomly, and that only those creatures that manage to provide for themselves and reproduce ...
Adaptation and Natural Selection: A Critique of Some Current Evolutionary Thought is a 1966 book by the American evolutionary biologist George C. Williams.Williams, in what is now considered a classic by evolutionary biologists, [1] outlines a gene-centered view of evolution, [2] disputes notions of evolutionary progress, and criticizes contemporary models of group selection, including the ...
Haldane also applied statistical analysis to real-world examples of natural selection, such as peppered moth evolution and industrial melanism, and showed that selection coefficients could be larger than Fisher assumed, leading to more rapid adaptive evolution as a camouflage strategy following increased pollution. [4] [5]
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 ...
In his book, Dobzhansky applied the theoretical work of Sewall Wright (1889–1988) to the study of natural populations, allowing him to address evolutionary problems in a novel way during his time. Dobzhansky implements theories of mutation, natural selection, and speciation throughout his book to explain the habits of populations and the ...
Evolutionary biology, in particular the understanding of how organisms evolve through natural selection, is an area of science with many practical applications. [1] [2] Creationists often claim that the theory of evolution lacks any practical applications; however, this claim has been refuted by scientists.