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Part I of the book focuses on the early history of evolutionary thought (pre-1859). Chapter one introduces and outlines the Structure of Evolutionary Theory, with chapter two covering the structure of The Origin of Species, chapter three focusing on issues surrounding agency, chapters four and five covering efficacy, and chapters six and seven ...
Darwin's theory of evolution is based on key facts and the inferences drawn from them, which biologist Ernst Mayr summarised as follows: [6] Every species is fertile enough that if all offspring survived to reproduce, the population would grow (fact). Despite periodic fluctuations, populations remain roughly the same size (fact).
Charles Darwin gave new direction to morphology and physiology, by uniting them in a common biological theory: the theory of organic evolution. The result was a reconstruction of the classification of animals upon a genealogical basis, fresh investigation of the development of animals, and early attempts to determine their genetic relationships.
The theory was first set out in detail in Darwin's book On the Origin of Species. [6] Evolution by natural selection is established by observable facts about living organisms: (1) more offspring are often produced than can possibly survive; (2) traits vary among individuals with respect to their morphology, physiology, and behaviour; (3 ...
The evolutionary biologists Kenneth McNamara and Michael McKinney stated in 2005 that of all the books that Gould wrote in his career, "the one with the most impact is probably Ontogeny and Phylogeny... to say that this work is a hallmark in this area of evolutionary theory would be an understatement.
The first chapter is a short outline of the main points of the book: Evolutionary theory must account for variations on the level of the individual and also that of populations and species. It must explain how reproductive isolation can occur. And the goal is to explain all this using genetic principles that can be verified in the laboratory.
Professor of biology Jerry Coyne sums up biological evolution succinctly: [3]. Life on Earth evolved gradually beginning with one primitive species – perhaps a self-replicating molecule – that lived more than 3.5 billion years ago; it then branched out over time, throwing off many new and diverse species; and the mechanism for most (but not all) of evolutionary change is natural selection.
The modern evolutionary synthesis is the outcome of a merger of several different scientific fields to produce a more cohesive understanding of evolutionary theory. In the 1920s, Ronald Fisher , J.B.S. Haldane and Sewall Wright combined Darwin's theory of natural selection with statistical models of Mendelian genetics , founding the discipline ...