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The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (2002) is Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould's technical book on macroevolution and the historical development of evolutionary theory. [1] The book was twenty years in the making, [2] published just two months before Gould's death. [3] Aimed primarily at professionals, [4] the volume is divided into ...
In his 2014 book Homology, Genes, and Evolutionary Innovation, the evolutionary biologist Günter P. Wagner argues for "the study of novelty as distinct from adaptation." He defines novelty as occurring when some part of the body develops an individual and quasi-independent existence, in other words as a distinct and recognisable structure ...
Level of support for evolution – Variation in support for the theory of evolution; Objections to evolution – Arguments that have been made against evolution; Social effects of evolutionary theory – Effects on human societies of the scientific explanation of life's diversity; Theology of creationism and evolution – Topic in theology
Here the evolution of human society (socialization) is ruled by psychological, economic, informational and communicative processes. For Teilhard there is a further stage, one of spiritual evolution , the Christing of the collective noosphere, in which humanity converges in a single divinisation he calls the Omega Point .
The genetic regulation of ontogeny and the phylogenetic process is what allows for this kind of understanding of biology. By looking at different processes during development, and going through the evolutionary tree, one can determine at which point a specific structure came about. [6] [7]
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.
In this way, modern genetics undoubtedly lifts the veil from the evolution of biotypes, Jordanones and Linneones [i.e. variations within a species] [j] (a kind of microevolution), but that evolution of the higher systematic groups, which has always particularly occupied the minds of men (a kind of macroevolution), lies entirely outside its ...
In 1985, biologist Robert G. B. Reid authored Evolutionary Theory: The Unfinished Synthesis, which argued that the modern synthesis with its emphasis on natural selection is an incomplete picture of evolution, and emergent evolution can explain the origin of genetic variation. [25] [26] [27]