Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes that are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Different characteristics tend to exist within any given population as a result of mutation, genetic recombination and other sources of genetic variation. Evolution occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection (including sexual selection) and genetic drift act on this variation, resulting in certain characteristics becoming more common or rare within a population. It is this process of evolution that has given rise to biodiversity at every level of biological organisation, including the levels of species, individual organisms and molecules.
Introduction
Evolution
Evolution | Introduction
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which of the following is the ultimate result of evolution
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In terms of ultimate causation, zero-sum thinking might be a legacy of human evolution. Specifically, it might be understood to be a psychological adaptation that facilitated successful resource competition in the environment of ancestral humans where resources like mates, status, and food were perpetually scarce. For example, Rubin suggests that the pace of technological growth was so slow during the period in which modern humans evolved that no individual would have observed any growth during their lifetime: "Each person would live and die in a world of constant technology and income. Thus, there was no incentive to evolve a mechanism for understanding or planning for growth" (p.
Zero-sum thinking | Ultimate causes
The result was the joint publication in July of an extract from Darwin's 1844 essay along with Wallace's letter. Darwin also began work on a short abstract summarising his theory, which he would publish in 1859 as "On the Origin of Species".
History of evolutionary thought | Natural selection
Life, according to Samael Aun Weor, is eternal, however its expression is divided into evolutive and devolutive modes: species evolve, reach a pinnacle, and necessarily devolve and return to a germinal state. Man, therefore, is not the outcome of the evolution from a common ancestor to the primates, but rather the exponent of an eternal anthropic principle. Monkeys, apes, and other primates are instead the outcome of certain sub-sects of ancient humanity copulating with animals, and are in a complete state of devolution. He does state however that evolution within a species is possible, yet that no species can evolve from another species.
Samael Aun Weor | Anthropology
David Attenborough embarks on an epic 500-million-year journey to unravel the incredible rise of the vertebrates. The evolution of animals with backbones is one of the greatest stories in natural history. To tell this story, David presents explosive new fossil evidence from China, a region he has long dreamt of exploring and the frontier of modern paleontological research. He reveals how vertebrates came to be the dominant form of animal life, and why humans are the heirs to a magnificent evolutionary heritage. This episode reveals how mammals developed from tiny nocturnal forest dwellers to the dominant form of life on the planet following the death of the dinosaurs.
David Attenborough's Rise of Animals: Triumph of the Vertebrates | Part 2: Dawn of the Mammals
Yet as a result of evolutionary experimentation, only one species has prospered and survived. One human species is now the only twig on what was once a big branching bush of different species." This idea differs from the typical view that "homo sapiens" is the pinnacle of an evolutionary ladder that humanity's ancestors laboriously climbed.
Ian Tattersall | Career
This diversity is direct result of rare clones with extreme genomes that emerged by chance after repeated bottleneck events, and this diversity persists because of the lack of selective constraints on rapid growth inside the host tissue.
Ehrlichia | Evolution
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.
Universal evolution | Introduction
For example, the overwhelming majority of species are microscopic prokaryotes, which form about half the world's biomass despite their small size, and constitute the vast majority of Earth's biodiversity. Simple organisms have therefore been the dominant form of life on Earth throughout its history and continue to be the main form of life up to the present day, with complex life only appearing more diverse because it is more noticeable. Indeed, the evolution of microorganisms is particularly important to modern evolutionary research, since their rapid reproduction allows the study of experimental evolution and the observation of evolution and adaptation in real time.
Evolution | Outcomes
Evolution is the process of change in all forms of life over generations, and evolutionary biology is the study of how evolution occurs. Biological populations evolve through genetic changes that correspond to changes in the organisms' observable traits. Genetic changes include mutations, which are caused by damage or replication errors in organisms' DNA. As the genetic variation of a population drifts randomly over generations, natural selection gradually leads traits to become more or less common based on the relative reproductive success of organisms with those traits. The age of the Earth is about 4.5 billion years. The earliest undisputed evidence of life on Earth dates at least from 3.5 billion years ago.
Introduction to evolution | Introduction
Simon Conway Morris disputes this conclusion, arguing that convergence is a dominant force in evolution, and given that the same environmental and physical constraints are at work, life will inevitably evolve toward an "optimum" body plan, and at some point, evolution is bound to stumble upon intelligence, a trait presently identified with at least primates, corvids, and cetaceans.
Convergent evolution | Overview
In geological terms this will be an abrupt event. A resumption of avoiding mutant mates will, thereafter, result, once again, in evolutionary stagnation.
Rate of evolution | Overcoming koinophilia
An audiobook version has also been released, read by Dawkins and his wife Lalla Ward.
The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution | Introduction
The modern evolutionary synthesis is based on the concept that populations of organisms have significant genetic variation caused by mutation and by the recombination of genes during sexual reproduction. It defines evolution as the change in allelic frequencies within a population caused by genetic drift, gene flow between sub populations, and natural selection. Natural selection is emphasised as the most important mechanism of evolution; large changes are the result of the gradual accumulation of small changes over long periods of time. The modern evolutionary synthesis is the outcome of a merger of several different scientific fields to produce a more cohesive understanding of evolutionary theory.
Introduction to evolution | Modern synthesis
Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved. Darwin added the phrase "by the Creator" from the 1860 second edition onwards, so that the ultimate sentence begins "There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one".
On the Origin of Species | Concluding remarks
The implication from such a find is that modern reptiles and birds arose from a common ancestor.
Introduction to evolution | Fossil record
Repeated reworking of the crust and mantle through processes such as partial melting and plate tectonics increased the total to about 1500. The remaining minerals, more than two-thirds of the total, were the result of chemical changes mediated by living organisms, with the largest increase occurring after the Great Oxygenation Event.
Mineral evolution | Introduction
Rzhetsky and Nei's results set the ME criterion free from the Occam's razor principle and confer it a solid theoretical and quantitative basis.
Maximum parsimony (phylogenetics) | Minimum Evolution
In both natural and artificial selection the variations are a result of random mutations, and the underlying genetic processes are essentially the same. Darwin carefully observed the outcomes of artificial selection in animals and plants to form many of his arguments in support of natural selection. Much of his book "On the Origin of Species" was based on these observations of the many varieties of domestic pigeons arising from artificial selection. Darwin proposed that if humans could achieve dramatic changes in domestic animals in short periods, then natural selection, given millions of years, could produce the differences seen in living things today.
Introduction to evolution | Artificial selection
Sometime during the 1840s Owen came to the conclusion that species arise as the result of some sort of evolutionary process. He believed that there was a total of six possible mechanisms: parthenogenesis, prolonged development, premature birth, congenital malformations, Lamarckian atrophy, Lamarckian hypertrophy and transmutation, of which he thought transmutation was the least likely. The historian of science Evelleen Richards has argued that Owen was likely sympathetic to developmental theories of evolution, but backed away from publicly proclaiming them after the critical reaction that had greeted the anonymously published evolutionary book "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" in 1844 (it was revealed only decades later that the book had been authored by publisher Robert Chambers).
Richard Owen | Owen, Darwin, and the theory of evolution
It is one of the most dramatic examples of convergent evolution in biology.
Convergent evolution | Fruits
Human evolution is the evolutionary process that led to the emergence of anatomically modern humans, beginning with the evolutionary history of primates—in particular genus "Homo"—and leading to the emergence of "Homo sapiens" as a distinct species of the hominid family, which includes the great apes. This process involved the gradual development of traits such as human bipedalism and language, as well as interbreeding with other hominins, which indicate that human evolution was not linear but a web. The study of human evolution involves several scientific disciplines, including physical anthropology, primatology, archaeology, paleontology, neurobiology, ethology, linguistics, evolutionary psychology, embryology and genetics.
Human evolution | Introduction
Evolution does not attempt to explain the origin of life (covered instead by abiogenesis), but it does explain how early lifeforms evolved into the complex ecosystem that we see today. Based on the similarities between all present-day organisms, all life on Earth is assumed to have originated through common descent from a last universal ancestor from which all known species have diverged through the process of evolution. All individuals have hereditary material in the form of genes received from their parents, which they pass on to any offspring. Among offspring there are variations of genes due to the introduction of new genes via random changes called mutations or via reshuffling of existing genes during sexual reproduction.
Introduction to evolution | Introduction
It contains the following chapters: The book also contains an extensive appendix containing the majority of Haldane's mathematical treatment of the subject.
The Causes of Evolution | Chapters
Darwin and his contemporaries viewed evolution as a slow and gradual process. Evolutionary trees are based on the idea that profound differences in species are the result of many small changes that accumulate over long periods. Gradualism had its basis in the works of the geologists James Hutton and Charles Lyell. Hutton's view suggests that profound geological change was the cumulative product of a relatively slow continuing operation of processes which can still be seen in operation today, as opposed to catastrophism which promoted the idea that sudden changes had causes which can no longer be seen at work. A uniformitarian perspective was adopted for biological changes.
Introduction to evolution | Rate of change
This led to a number of complementary changes to the human pelvis. It is suggested that bipedalism was the result.
Pelvis | Evolution
The player with the largest number of victory points at the end of the game is the winner. The rankings of players in match are determined as follows:
Evolution: The Origin of Species | Place definition in match
Thus, in successive generations members of a population are more likely to be replaced by the progenies of parents with favourable characteristics that have enabled them to survive and reproduce in their respective environments. In the early 20th century, other competing ideas of evolution such as mutationism and orthogenesis were refuted as the modern synthesis reconciled Darwinian evolution with classical genetics, which established adaptive evolution as being caused by natural selection acting on Mendelian genetic variation. All life on Earth shares a last universal common ancestor (LUCA) that lived approximately 3.5–3.8 billion years ago. The fossil record includes a progression from early biogenic graphite, to microbial mat fossils, to fossilised multicellular organisms.
Evolution | Introduction
Evolve is a 2008 documentary television series on History. The series premiere, "Eyes", was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Science, Technology and Nature Programming. Each episode attempts to explain the evolutionary origins of a particular trait of living creatures: for example, Tyrannosaurus rex's 13-inch teeth, the gecko's "Velcro-like" toe pads, and the bald eagle's "telescopic" vision capable of spotting a hare a mile away.
Evolve (TV series) | Introduction
Moreover, African populations have the highest amounts of genetic diversity; the further one moves from Africa, the more homogeneous people become genetically. In fact, most of the variations in the human genome is due not to natural selection but rather neutral mutations and random shuffling of genes down the generations.
Recent human evolution | Neolithic or New Stone Age
The book is divided into 13 chapters spanning over 400 pages, and includes an appendix called "The history-deniers" in the end material.
The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution | Synopsis
According to Broom "Much of evolution looks as if it had been planned to result in man, and in other animals and plants to make the world a suitable place for him to dwell in." After discovering the skull of Mrs. Ples, Broom was asked if he excavated at random, Broom replied that spirits had told him where to find his discoveries.
Robert Broom | Spiritual evolution
It was shown that this spur length diversity is achieved solely through changing cell shape, not cell number or cell size. This suggests that a simple microscopic change can result in a dramatic evolutionarily relevant morphological change.
Aquilegia | Evolution
At the end of extinction phase for each player it is determined, as in basic set rules, the quantity of cards to get (1 card per 1 survived animal + 1 card, if there is no survived animal and no cards in hand – player takes 6 cards). Player looks at his "genofond" and takes cards from it for the next turn. If there is no player who can take accrued cards in full, then the last turn begins.
Evolution: The Origin of Species | Extinction phase
Jonas Salks is optimistic that humanity is capable of merging intuition with reason in order to find the path that leads to conscious evolution: "“It now remains for human beings to decide the ultimate course of human evolution. By imagining ourselves inside the process of evolution and by imagining the process of evolution working inside our minds, we may discover how to deal with the opportunities that might influence the direction of evolutionary choices.”"
Conscious evolution | Opinions
Here we return to the population level. Over many generations, the success of the species' behaviour in its ancestral environment—or more technically, the environment of evolutionary adaptedness (EEA) may result in evolution as measured by a change in its genes.
Tinbergen's four questions | Causal relationships
The ultimate cause of a biological event determines how the event makes organisms better adapted to their environment, and thus why evolution by natural selection has produced that event. While a large number of ultimate causes of hermaphroditism have been proposed, the two causes most relevant to sequential hermaphroditism are the size-advantage model and protection against inbreeding.
Sequential hermaphroditism | Ultimate causes
Evolution influences every aspect of the form and behaviour of organisms. Most prominent are the specific behavioural and physical adaptations that are the outcome of natural selection. These adaptations increase fitness by aiding activities such as finding food, avoiding predators or attracting mates. Organisms can also respond to selection by cooperating with each other, usually by aiding their relatives or engaging in mutually beneficial symbiosis. In the longer term, evolution produces new species through splitting ancestral populations of organisms into new groups that cannot or will not interbreed. These outcomes of evolution are distinguished based on time scale as macroevolution versus microevolution.
Evolution | Outcomes
At the most fundamental level, Charles Darwin's theory of evolution states that organisms evolve and adapt to their environment by an iterative process. This process can be conceived as an evolutionary algorithm that searches the space of possible forms (the fitness landscape) for the ones that are best adapted. The process has three components: After those fit variants are retained, they can again undergo variation, either directly or in their offspring, starting a new round of the iteration. The overall mechanism is similar to the problem-solving procedures of trial-and-error or generate-and-test: evolution can be seen as searching for the best solution for the problem of how to survive and reproduce by generating new trials, testing how well they perform, eliminating the failures, and retaining the successes.
Universal Darwinism | Basic mechanisms
The evolutionary scheme is carried through five of these Worlds in seven great Periods of manifestation, during which the evolving virgin spirit becomes first human and, then, a God. The highest Worlds are created first, and as involution is to slowly carry the life into denser and denser matter for the building of forms, the finer Worlds gradually condense and new Worlds are differentiated within God to furnish the necessary links between Himself and the Worlds which have consolidated. In due time the point of greatest density, the nadir of materiality, is reached. From that point the life begins to ascend into higher Worlds, as evolution proceeds.
Round (Theosophy) | Rosicrucian
The hybrid then, by allopolyploidy doubled its chromosome number spontaneously, leading to the resultant and extant 2"n" = 14 species. Alternatively, the modern chromosome number could have arisen from an ancestor like "Anisocarpus scabridus", with a chromosome complement of "n =" 7, and then arisen by autopolyploidy, instead of needing to first hybridize.
Silversword alliance | Evolution
The prize winner was then chosen in a random selection.
Absolute Greatest | Introduction
The ultimate fate of all massive stars is a core collapse and some sort of supernova explosion. Below about this is expected to occur as a type II supernova from a red supergiant progenitor. More massive stars evolve into Wolf–Rayet stars before exploding as a type Ib or Ic supernova. For some intermediate range of masses, stars are thought to undergo core collapse at the yellow hypergiant or LBV stage of their lives, resulting in a type IIb or perhaps IIn supernova. HR 8752 may be such a star, and may never make it beyond its current evolutionary state before exploding.
V509 Cassiopeiae | Evolutionary state
Convergent evolution — the repeated evolution of similar traits in multiple lineages which all ancestrally lack the trait — is rife in nature, as illustrated by the examples below. The ultimate cause of convergence is usually a similar evolutionary biome, as similar environments will select for similar traits in any species occupying the same ecological niche, even if those species are only distantly related. In the case of cryptic species, it can create species which are only distinguishable by analysing their genetics. Unrelated organisms often develop analogous structures by adapting to similar environments.
List of examples of convergent evolution | Introduction
This is followed by Biogenesis (Teilhard) and the origin of life or the Biosphere (Vernadsky, Teilhard), where there is a greater degree of complexity and consciousness (Teilhard - the "Within"), ecology (Vernadsky) comes into play, and progress and development is the result of Darwinian mechanisms of evolution.
Universal evolution | Vernadsky's and Teilhard's theories
Animals undergo divergent evolution for a number of reasons. Predators or their absence, changes in the environment, and the time at which certain animals are most active are chief among them.
Divergent evolution | Causes
The evolution of biological complexity is one important outcome of the process of evolution. Evolution has produced some remarkably complex organisms – although the actual level of complexity is very hard to define or measure accurately in biology, with properties such as gene content, the number of cell types or morphology all proposed as possible metrics. Many biologists used to believe that evolution was progressive (orthogenesis) and had a direction that led towards so-called "higher organisms", despite a lack of evidence for this viewpoint. This idea of "progression" and "higher organisms" in evolution is now regarded as misleading, with natural selection having no intrinsic direction and organisms selected for either increased or decreased complexity in response to local environmental conditions.
Evolution of biological complexity | Introduction
The question of whether there is evolutionary progress is better formulated as the question of whether there are any largest-scale trends in evolution (McShea, 1998). That is, is there a consistent directional change throughout the history of life on Earth?
Largest-scale trends in evolution | Hypothetical largest-scale trends
There must be a competitive struggle for resources that aid in survival. As a result, Darwin realised that it was not chance alone that determined survival. Instead, survival of an organism depends on the differences of each individual organism, or "traits," that aid or hinder survival and reproduction. Well-adapted individuals are likely to leave more offspring than their less well-adapted competitors. Traits that hinder survival and reproduction would "disappear" over generations. Traits that help an organism survive and reproduce would "accumulate" over generations. Darwin realised that the unequal ability of individuals to survive and reproduce could cause gradual changes in the population and used the term "natural selection" to describe this process.
Introduction to evolution | Natural selection
A fundamental part of `Abdul-Bahá's teachings on evolution is the belief that all life came from the same origin: "the origin of all material life is one..." He states that from this sole origin, the complete diversity of life was generated: "Consider the world of created beings, how varied and diverse they are in species, yet with one sole origin" He explains that a slow, gradual process led to the development of complex entities:
Level of support for evolution | Baha'i Faith
"L'évolution créatrice" is upheld, according to Bergson, by a constant vital force which animates life and fundamentally connects mind and body, an idea opposing the dualism of René Descartes. In 1923, C. Lloyd Morgan took this work further, elaborating on an "emergent evolution" which could explain increasing complexity (including the evolution of mind). Morgan found many of the most interesting changes in living things have been largely discontinuous with past evolution. Therefore, these living things did not necessarily evolve through a gradual process of natural selection. Rather, he posited, the process of evolution experiences jumps in complexity (such as the emergence of a self-reflective universe, or noosphere), in a sort of qualitative punctuated equilibrium.
Noosphere | Concept
The player with the largest number of victory points at the end of the game is the winner. The rankings of players in match are determined as follows: Card can be played as:
Evolution: Random Mutations | Place definition in match
Finally, the size of the body grew as well.
Evolution of the horse | Teeth
The neutral theory of molecular evolution proposed that most evolutionary changes are the result of the fixation of neutral mutations by genetic drift. Hence, in this model, most genetic changes in a population are the result of constant mutation pressure and genetic drift. This form of the neutral theory is now largely abandoned, since it does not seem to fit the genetic variation seen in nature. However, a more recent and better-supported version of this model is the nearly neutral theory, where a mutation that would be effectively neutral in a small population is not necessarily neutral in a large population.
Evolution | Genetic drift
Other hosts were added by the same process until the modern bewildering diversity of life cycle patterns developed.
Digenea | Evolution
Farming, which, the authors note, produces 10 to 100 times more calories per acre than foraging, carried this trend further. Over the period from 10,000 BC to AD 1, the world population increased about a hundredfold - estimates range from 40 to 170 times. An accelerated rate of evolution is a direct result of the larger human population. More people will have more mutations, thereby increasing opportunity for evolutionary change under natural selection. The spread of rapidly expanding populations eventually outpaced the spread of favourable mutations under selection in those populations, so for the first time in human history favourable mutations could not fully disperse throughout the human species.
The 10,000 Year Explosion | Agriculture
H. P. Madrell writes that "the proper but cumbersome way of describing change by evolutionary adaptation [may be] substituted by shorter overtly teleological statements" for the sake of saving space, but that this "should not be taken to imply that evolution proceeds by anything other than from mutations arising by chance, with those that impart an advantage being retained by natural selection." However, Lennox states that in evolution as conceived by Darwin, it is true both that evolution is the result of mutations arising by chance and that evolution is teleological in nature. Statements that a species does something "in order to" achieve survival are teleological.
Four causes | Biology
One shuffles the main deck. Each player gets 7 cards in a row lying face down from the top of the deck. That is players' decks. Then each player receives additional 3 cards from the main deck creating first 3 species. Players roll dice to determine the first player.
Evolution: Random Mutations | Preparation
Wade's review was subsequently criticised in numerous letters to "The New York Times". In one, Daniel Dennett asserted that creationism deserves as much respect as believing that the world is flat. Another letter, from Philip Kitcher, Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, asserted that evolution and other scientific findings "are so well supported that they count as facts".
The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution | Critical reception
In this scenario all the players have equal conditions. Players get the same set of traits and opportunity to choose required one in current game position. 1 "Evolution" base set is required for 2-4 players. 2 "Evolution" base sets - for 5-8 players.
Evolution: The Origin of Species | "Evolution. Equilibrium" scenario
In the Bahá'í Faith, `Abdul-Bahá, the son of the founder of the religion, wrote about the origin of life. A fundamental part of `Abdul-Bahá's teachings on evolution is the belief that all life came from the same origin: "the origin of all material life is one..." He states that from this sole origin, the complete diversity of life was generated: "Consider the world of created beings, how varied and diverse they are in species, yet with one sole origin" He explains that a slow, gradual process led to the development of complex entities:
Acceptance of evolution by religious groups | Bahá'í
As a result of natural selection that plays out on the game – positive mutations remain more often than negative. One more important entity is the population of species. Game presentation was held on 15 December 2013.
Evolution: Random Mutations | Introduction
Darwinian evolution has an enhanced reliance on the chance element of random mutation compared to the earlier evolutionary theory of Herbert Spencer. However, the question of whether evolution requires genuine ontological indeterminism is open to debate In the essay "Chance and Necessity" (1970) Jacques Monod rejected the role of final causation in biology, instead arguing that a mixture of efficient causation and "pure chance" lead to teleonomy, or merely "apparent" purposefulness. The Japanese theoretical population geneticist Motoo Kimura emphasises the role of indeterminism in evolution. According to neutral theory of molecular evolution: "at the molecular level most evolutionary change is caused by random drift of gene mutants that are equivalent in the face of selection.
Indeterminism | Evolution and biology
He kept "Only a Theory?" as the title for the first chapter, "with a precautionary question mark to guard against creationist quote-mining". Dawkins got the title from a T-shirt given to him by "an anonymous well-wisher" which bears the words "Evolution: The Greatest Show on Earth; the Only Game in Town". He wore it occasionally when giving lectures, and realised it was ideal for a title. However, since his editor would not permit such a long title, they shortened it to "The Greatest Show on Earth". On three occasions, Dawkins wanted to include new scientific findings that emerged late in the publishing process; despite the disruption, the publisher accommodated them.
The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution | Background
Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes that are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Different characteristics tend to exist within any given population as a result of mutation, genetic recombination and other sources of genetic variation. Evolution occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection (including sexual selection) and genetic drift act on this variation, resulting in certain characteristics becoming more common or rare within a population. It is this process of evolution that has given rise to biodiversity at every level of biological organisation, including the levels of species, individual organisms and molecules.
Evolution | Introduction
The current distribution of the Zingiberales seems to be a product of numerous secondary and tertiary dispersal events between the major tropical regions of the world.
Zingiberales | Evolution
These changes taken together have been interpreted as a result of an increased emphasis on pair bonding as a possible solution to the requirement for increased parental investment due to the prolonged infancy of offspring.
Human evolution | Sexual dimorphism
According to Richards, "The Races of Men" advocated "a common material origin of life and its evolution by a process of saltatory descent"; that is to say, new species arose not by gradual change but by sudden leaps due to shifts in embryonic development. Knox tentatively concluded that "simple animals ... may have produced by continuous generation the more complex animals of after ages . . . the fish of the early world may have produced reptiles, then again birds and quadrupeds; lastly, man himself?" Newly formed species survived or perished according to external conditions, which acted as "potent checks to an infinite variety of forms".
Robert Knox | Evolution
Every variety is a deviation which becomes a species as soon as it is permanent by reproduction. Deviations in essential organs may thus gradually become new genera.
Constantine Samuel Rafinesque | Evolution
He captured the Hulk, intending to evolve him forward by a million years. However, his experiment was interrupted by the New Men, who fatally wounded their former master. In desperation, he performed the experiment meant for the Hulk on himself, evolving into a godlike being. In this enlightened state, he was repulsed by his tampering with evolution and devolved the surviving New Men before willing his own existence to dissolve and become one with the cosmos. The High Evolutionary eventually returned to human form and finished his creation, Counter-Earth. Although Counter-Earth was supposed to be a temporary structure that would be evolved into a paradise, the Man-Beast corrupted the process, and Counter-Earth became an imperfect world.
High Evolutionary | Counter-Earth
The early production of few large seeds followed by production of many small seeds may have been the result of the variable and unpredictable growing season, fitting to a pioneer species.
Gymnarrhena | Evolutionary processes
He attributes the divergence of the two species from a common ancestor to a change in their ecological niche; the ancestors of chimpanzees remained in the forests of equatorial Africa, whereas the ancestors of humans moved to open woodland and were exposed to different evolutionary pressures. Although Wade posits that much of human evolution can be attributed to the physical environment, he also believes that one of the major forces shaping evolution has been the nature of human society itself. After humans migrated out of their ancestral environment of eastern Africa, they were exposed to new climates and challenges. Thus, Wade argues, human evolution did not end with behavioural modernity, but continued to be shaped by the different environments and lifestyles of each continent.
Before the Dawn (book) | Introduction
As a result, they exhibited more plasticity, and thus possessed an increased capacity to learn and required a longer period of dependence. Social skills became more complex, language became more sophisticated, and tools became more elaborate. This contributed to further cooperation and intellectual development. Modern humans ("Homo sapiens") are believed to have originated around 200,000 years ago or earlier in Africa; the oldest fossils date back to around 160,000 years ago.
History of Earth | Human evolution
The result is a "cosmic copulation" whose effect is an infinite, living mind.
The All | Possible origin
These experiments address various important questions in evolutionary biology: does evolution proceed in small steps or in large leaps; is evolution reversible; how does complexity evolve? It has been shown that slight mutations in the amino acid sequence of hormone receptors determine an important change in their preferences for hormones. These changes mean huge steps in the evolution of the endocrine system. Thus very small changes at the molecular level may have enormous consequences. The Thornton lab has also been able to show that evolution is irreversible studying the glucocorticoid receptor. This receptor was changed by seven mutations in a cortisol receptor, but reversing these mutations didn't give the original receptor back.
Ancestral sequence reconstruction | Significance
Peirce regarded this process as a mode of evolution of the cosmos and its parts, and he called the process "agapasm", such that: "The good result is here brought to pass, first, by the bestowal of spontaneous energy by the parent upon the offspring, and, second, by the disposition of the latter to catch the general idea of those about it and thus to subserve the general purpose." Peirce held that there are three such principles and three associated modes of evolution:
Agapism | Introduction
The Causes of Evolution is a 1932 book on evolution by J.B.S. Haldane (1990 edition ), based on a series of January 1931 lectures entitled "A Re-examination of Darwinism". It was influential in the founding of population genetics and the modern synthesis.
The Causes of Evolution | Introduction
Evolution formed an improvement to the design concept which had been pioneered with Resolution
Cambridge University Eco Racing | "Evolution"
Therefore, these perfect enzymes must have come about by 'lucky' random mutation which happened to spread, or because the faster speed was once useful as part of a different reaction in the enzyme's ancestry.
Diffusion-limited enzyme | Evolution
Insects diversified in only about 100 million years into essentially modern forms. Insect evolution is characterized by rapid adaptation due to selective pressures exerted by the environment and furthered by high fecundity. It appears that rapid radiations and the appearance of new species, a process that continues to this day, result in insects filling all available environmental niches.
Evolution of insects | Evolutionary history
Although there has been an increase in the maximum level of complexity over the history of life, there has always been a large majority of small and simple organisms and the most common level of complexity appears to have remained relatively constant.
Evolution of biological complexity | Introduction
As a consequence of the debate over the viability of neo-Lamarckism, in 1896 James Mark Baldwin, Henry Fairfield Osborne and C. Lloyd Morgan all independently proposed a mechanism where new learned behaviors could cause the evolution of new instincts and physical traits through natural selection without resort to the inheritance of acquired characteristics. They proposed that if individuals in a species benefited from learning a particular new behavior, the ability to learn that behavior could be favored by natural selection, and the end result would be the evolution of new instincts and eventually new physical adaptations. This became known as the Baldwin effect and it has remained a topic of debate and research in evolutionary biology ever since.
The eclipse of Darwinism | Baldwin effect
When the mutation step is drawn from a multivariate normal distribution using an evolving covariance matrix, it has been hypothesized that this adapted matrix approximates the inverse Hessian of the search landscape. This hypothesis has been proven for a static model relying on a quadratic approximation. The (environmental) selection in evolution strategies is deterministic and only based on the fitness rankings, not on the actual fitness values. The resulting algorithm is therefore invariant with respect to monotonic transformations of the objective function. The simplest evolution strategy operates on a population of size two: the current point (parent) and the result of its mutation.
Evolution strategy | Methods
Distinctive human genetic variability has arisen as the result of the founder effect, by archaic admixture and by recent evolutionary pressures.
Human evolution | "H. sapiens"
Calvin and Daniel Dennett.
World Summit on Evolution | Introduction
Human evolution is the biological process that led to the emergence of the species "Homo sapiens(binomial nomenclature for the human species)": "Human evolution" may also refer to:
Human evolution (disambiguation) | Introduction
Darwin gained extensive experience as he collected and studied the natural history of life forms from distant places. Through his studies, he formulated the idea that each species had developed from ancestors with similar features. In 1838, he described how a process he called natural selection would make this happen. The size of a population depends on how much and how many resources are able to support it. For the population to remain the same size year after year, there must be an equilibrium, or balance between the population size and available resources. Since organisms produce more offspring than their environment can support, not all individuals can survive out of each generation.
Introduction to evolution | Natural selection
Evolutionary biologists suggest that the genus "Homo" arose in East Africa approximately 2.5 million years ago. They devised new hunting techniques. The higher protein diet led to the evolution of larger body and brain sizes. Jablonski postulates that increasing body size, in conjunction with intensified hunting during the day at the equator, gave rise to a greater need to rapidly expel heat. As a result, humans evolved the ability to sweat: a process which was facilitated by the loss of body hair. Another factor in human evolution that also occurred in the prehistoric past was a preferential selection for neoteny, particularly in females.
Hair | Evolutionary variation
After the emergence of humans, Microcephalin seems to have shown a slower evolution rate. On the contrary, ASPM showed its most rapid evolution in the later years of human evolution once the divergence between chimpanzees and humans had already occurred. Each of the gene sequences went through specific changes that led to the evolution of humans from ancestral relatives. In order to determine these alterations, Lahn and his colleagues used DNA sequences from multiple primates then compared and contrasted the sequences with those of humans. Following this step, the researchers statistically analyzed the key differences between the primate and human DNA to come to the conclusion, that the differences were due to natural selection.
Evolution of the brain | Genetic factors contributing to modern evolution
The issue of how change in nature 'emerged' can be found in classical Greek thought - order coming out of chaos and whether by chance or necessity. Aristotle spoke of wholes that were greater than the sum of their parts because of emergent properties. The second-century anatomist and physiologist Galen also distinguished between the resultant and emergent qualities of wholes. (Reid, p. 72) Hegel spoke of the revolutionary progression of life from non-living to conscious and then to the spiritual and Kant perceived that simple parts of an organism interact to produce a progressively complex series of emergences of functional forms, a distinction that carried over to John Stuart Mill (1843), who stated that even chemical compounds have novel features that cannot be predicted from their elements.
Emergent evolution | Early roots
Around 10 million years ago, the Earth's climate entered a cooler and drier phase, which led eventually to the Quaternary glaciation beginning some 2.6 million years ago. One consequence of this was that the north African tropical forest began to retreat, being replaced first by open grasslands and eventually by desert (the modern Sahara). As their environment changed from continuous forest to patches of forest separated by expanses of grassland, some primates adapted to a partly or fully ground-dwelling life. Here they were exposed to predators, such as the big cats, from whom they had previously been safe. These environmental pressures caused selection to favor bipedalism: walking on hind legs.
Evolution of human intelligence | Homininae
Life is a major source of complexity, and evolution is the major process behind the varying forms of life. In this view, evolution is the process describing the growth of complexity in the natural world and in speaking of the emergence of complex living beings and life-forms. Life is thought to have emerged in the early RNA world when RNA chains began to express the basic conditions necessary for natural selection to operate as conceived by Darwin: heritability, variation of type, and competition for limited resources. Fitness of an RNA replicator (its per capita rate of increase) would likely be a function of adaptive capacities that were intrinsic (in the sense that they were determined by the nucleotide sequence) and the availability of resources.
Emergence | Emergence and evolution
Mike Ashley has noted that the story was shaped by editor Horace Gold, and that Knight "accepted that the end result was better than his original", but was disappointed that the original "had been still-born".
Masters of Evolution | Origins
The norm against which these unusual features are judged is made up of fit attributes that have attained their plurality through natural selection, while less well adapted attributes will be in the minority or frankly rare. Since the overwhelming majority of mutant features are maladaptive, and it is impossible to predict evolution's future direction, sexual creatures would be expected to prefer mates with the fewest unusual or minority features. This will have the effect of a sexual population rapidly shedding peripheral phenotypic features, thereby canalizing the entire outward appearance and behavior of all of its members. They will all very quickly begin to look remarkably similar to one another in every detail, as illustrated in the accompanying photograph of the African pygmy kingfisher, "Ispidina picta".
Co-operation (evolution) | Evolutionary mechanisms suggesting that reciprocity is the result, not the cause, of the evolution of cooperation
The use of a model of evolution accounts for the fact that not all events are equally likely to happen. For example, a transition, which is a type of point mutation from one purine to another, or from one pyrimidine to another is much more likely to happen than a transversion, which is the chance of a purine being switched to a pyrimidine, or vice versa. These differences are not captured by maximum parsimony. However, just because some events are more likely than others does not mean that they always happen. We know that throughout evolutionary history there have been times when there was a large gap between what was most likely to happen, and what actually occurred.
Ancestral reconstruction | Maximum likelihood
Many of the founding figures of evolution supported the idea of "Evolutionary progress" which has fallen from favour, but the work of Francisco J. Ayala and Michael Ruse suggests is still influential.
Largest-scale trends in evolution | History
The main ideas of evolution may be summarised as follows:
Introduction to evolution | Simple overview
Tajima's team cited hotter than anticipated race conditions as partly responsible for the modest result, with the vehicle's onboard protection systems reducing power output to protect against overheating.
Mitsubishi MiEV Evolution | Results
It is unclear whether the resulting supernova would be under-luminous, or even invisible, as the result of collapsing into the black hole, or over-luminous due to a large mass of ejected radioactive Ni. The total lifetime would be around 2-3 million years, with the last half million years or so spent as a Wolf Rayet star burning helium at the core and a very short period burning heavier elements.
VFTS 682 | Evolution
The evolution of the epididymis from reptiles to mammals (Figure 1) entailed:
Epididymis evolution from reptiles to mammals | Summary and conclusion
The result was "Evolution", which was released in Ireland in June 2013. Evolution features a new look PictureHouse, cowrites with Lasse Anderson and Graham Lyle, as well as appearances from Frankie Gavin of De Dannan and vocalist Ingrid Madsen. They reformed with a brand new album "evolution" in June 2013. In February 2013 they asked fans to vote on the title of their new album. They voted to call it "Evolution". Following the success of the single Rules of Science which got considerable airplay in Ireland, The UK, Romania, Latvia, Cyprus and Indonesia, Cherry Red Records released a remastered, repackaged version of Evolution in 2014.
Picturehouse (band) | History