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The modern synthesis of the Theory of Evolution hypothesizes that speciation is most likely due to the gradual accumulation of small changes or mutations at the gene level. In other words, microevolution leads to macroevolution. Thanks to years of dedicated research by scientists across many disciplines, we now have a much better understanding ...
Oct 25, 2018 · The structure of evolutionary theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press. Provides historical and philosophical insights into the modern synthesis as it explores the core elements of evolutionary theory by one of the major figures in modern evolutionary biology. Grene, Marjorie, ed. 1983. Dimensions of Darwinism.
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- Overview
- The evidence for evolution
evolution, theory in biology postulating that the various types of plants, animals, and other living things on Earth have their origin in other preexisting types and that the distinguishable differences are due to modifications in successive generations. The theory of evolution is one of the fundamental keystones of modern biological theory.
The diversity of the living world is staggering. More than 2 million existing species of organisms have been named and described; many more remain to be discovered—from 10 million to 30 million, according to some estimates. What is impressive is not just the numbers but also the incredible heterogeneity in size, shape, and way of life—from lowly bacteria, measuring less than a thousandth of a millimetre in diameter, to stately sequoias, rising 100 metres (300 feet) above the ground and weighing several thousand tons; from bacteria living in hot springs at temperatures near the boiling point of water to fungi and algae thriving on the ice masses of Antarctica and in saline pools at −23 °C (−9 °F); and from giant tube worms discovered living near hydrothermal vents on the dark ocean floor to spiders and larkspur plants existing on the slopes of Mount Everest more than 6,000 metres (19,700 feet) above sea level.
The virtually infinite variations on life are the fruit of the evolutionary process. All living creatures are related by descent from common ancestors. Humans and other mammals descend from shrewlike creatures that lived more than 150 million years ago; mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fishes share as ancestors aquatic worms that lived 600 million years ago; and all plants and animals derive from bacteria-like microorganisms that originated more than 3 billion years ago. Biological evolution is a process of descent with modification. Lineages of organisms change through generations; diversity arises because the lineages that descend from common ancestors diverge through time.
The 19th-century English naturalist Charles Darwin argued that organisms come about by evolution, and he provided a scientific explanation, essentially correct but incomplete, of how evolution occurs and why it is that organisms have features—such as wings, eyes, and kidneys—clearly structured to serve specific functions. Natural selection was the fundamental concept in his explanation. Natural selection occurs because individuals having more-useful traits, such as more-acute vision or swifter legs, survive better and produce more progeny than individuals with less-favourable traits. Genetics, a science born in the 20th century, reveals in detail how natural selection works and led to the development of the modern theory of evolution. Beginning in the 1960s, a related scientific discipline, molecular biology, enormously advanced knowledge of biological evolution and made it possible to investigate detailed problems that had seemed completely out of reach only a short time previously—for example, how similar the genes of humans and chimpanzees might be (they differ in about 1–2 percent of the units that make up the genes).
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Darwin and other 19th-century biologists found compelling evidence for biological evolution in the comparative study of living organisms, in their geographic distribution, and in the fossil remains of extinct organisms. Since Darwin’s time, the evidence from these sources has become considerably stronger and more comprehensive, while biological disciplines that emerged more recently—genetics, biochemistry, physiology, ecology, animal behaviour (ethology), and especially molecular biology—have supplied powerful additional evidence and detailed confirmation. The amount of information about evolutionary history stored in the DNA and proteins of living things is virtually unlimited; scientists can reconstruct any detail of the evolutionary history of life by investing sufficient time and laboratory resources.
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Evolutionists no longer are concerned with obtaining evidence to support the fact of evolution but rather are concerned with what sorts of knowledge can be obtained from different sources of evidence. The following sections identify the most productive of these sources and illustrate the types of information they have provided.
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The Modern Evolutionary Synthesis is the name given to the school of thought which is now broadly accepted by evolutionary scientists around the world. Formal amalgamation of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection , Gregor Mendel’s genetics and August Weismann’s germ plasm theory was key to the Modern Synthesis, but ...
Jun 28, 2022 · Today, the modern synthesis “remains, mutatis mutandis, the core of modern evolutionary biology” wrote the evolutionary theorist Douglas Futuyma in a 2017 paper defending the mainstream view ...
The Modern Synthetic Theory of Evolution (also called Modern Synthesis) merges the concept of Darwinian evolution with Mendelian genetics, resulting in a unified theory of evolution. This theory is also referred to as the Neo-Darwinian theory and was introduced by a number of evolutionary biologists such as T. Dobzhansky, J.B.S. Haldane, R.A ...
The Modern Synthesis of Evolutionary Theory Overview. During the 1930s and 1940s a group of biologists and scientists in a variety of related fields assembled a new picture of biological change, mutation, and variation, merging genetics with Charles Darwin's (1809-1882) vision of natural selection, and refining and altering understanding of both.
