Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
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 ...
When a hypothesis has survived a sufficient number of tests, it may be promoted to a scientific theory. A theory is a hypothesis that has survived many tests and seems to be consistent with other established scientific theories. Since a theory is a promoted hypothesis, it is of the same 'logical' species and shares the same logical limitations.
Evolutionary progress as a tree of life. Ernst Haeckel, 1866 Lamarck's two-factor theory involves 1) a complexifying force that drives animal body plans towards higher levels (orthogenesis) creating a ladder of phyla, and 2) an adaptive force that causes animals with a given body plan to adapt to circumstances (use and disuse, inheritance of acquired characteristics), creating a diversity of ...
Dawkins vs. Gould: Survival of the Fittest is a book about the differing views of biologists Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould by philosopher of biology Kim Sterelny. When published in 2001 it became an international best-seller.
However, it is possible for directional selection to take a very long time to find a local optimum on a fitness landscape. [29] A possible example of long-term directional selection is the tendency of proteins to become more hydrophobic over time, [30] and to have their hydrophobic amino acids more interspersed along the sequence. [31]
In 1944 George Gaylord Simpson integrated paleontology into the synthesis by statistically analyzing the fossil record to show that it was consistent with the branching non-directional form of evolution predicted by the synthesis, and in particular that the linear trends cited by earlier paleontologists in support of Lamarckism and orthogenesis ...
Vitalism holds that living organisms differ from other things in containing something non-physical, such as a fluid or vital spirit, that makes them live. [33] The theory dates to ancient Egypt. [34] [21] Since Early Modern times, vitalism stood in contrast to the mechanistic explanation of biological systems started by Descartes.
This category is for articles about scientific hypotheses in the realm of biology. Subcategories This category has the following 10 subcategories, out of 10 total.