Common descent

About: Common descent is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 155 publications have been published within this topic receiving 8643 citations.

The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance

Abstract: 1 Introduction: How to write history of biology Subjectivity and bias Why study the history of biology? 2 The place of biology in the sciences and its conceptual structure The nature of science Method in science The position of biology within the sciences How and why is biology different? Special characteristics of living organisms Reduction and biology Emergence The conceptual structure of biology A new philosophy of biology 3 The changing intellectual milieu of biology Antiquity The Christian world picture The Renaissance The discovery of diversity Biology in the Enlightenment The rise of science from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century Divisive developments in the nineteenth century Biology in the twentieth century Major periods in the history of biology Biology and philosophy Biology today PART I DIVERSITY OF LIFE 4 Macrotaxonomy, the science of classifying Aristotle The classification of plants by the ancients and the herbalists Downward classification by logical division Pre-Linnaean zoologists Carl Linnaeus Buffon A new start in animal classification Taxonomic characters Upward classification by empirical grouping Transition period (1758-1859) Hierarchical classifications 5 Grouping according to common ancestry The decline of macrotaxonomic research Numerical phenetics Cladistics The traditional or evolutionary methodology New taxonomic characters Facilitation of information retrieval The study of diversity 6 Microtaxonomy, the science of species Early species concepts The essentialist species concept The nominalistic species concept Darwin's species concept The rise of the biological species concept Applying the biological species concept to multidimensional species taxa The significance of species in biology PART II EVOLUTION 7 Origins without evolution The coming of evolutionism The French Enlightenment 8 Evolution before Darwin Lamarck Cuvier England Lyell and uniformitarianism Germany 9 Charles Darwin Darwin and evolution Alfred Russel Wallace The publication of the Origin 10 Darwin's evidence for evolution and common descent Common descent and the natural system Common descent and geographical distribution Morphology as evidence for evolution and common descent Embryology as evidence for evolution and common descent 11 The causation of evolution: natural selection The major components of the theory of natural selection The origin of the concept of natural selection The impact of the Darwinian revolution The resistance to natural selection Alternate evolutionary theories 12 Diversity and synthesis of evolutionary thought The growing split among the evolutionists Advances in evolutionary genetics Advances in evolutionary systematics The evolutionary synthesis 13 Post-synthesis developments Molecular biology Natural selection Unresolved issues in natural selection Modes of speciation Macroevolution The evolution of man Evolution in modern thought PART III VARIATION AND ITS INHERITANCE 14 Early theories and breeding experiments Theories of inheritance among the ancients Mendel's forerunners 15 Germ cells, vehicles of heredity The Schwann-Schleiden cell theory The meaning of sex and fertilization Chromosomes and their role 16 The nature of inheritance Darwin and variation August Weismann Hugo de Vries Gregor Mendel 17 The flowering of Mendelian genetics The rediscoverers of Mendel The classical period of Mendelian genetics The origin of new variation (mutation) The emergence of modern genetics The Sutton-Boveri chromosome theory Sex determination Morgan and the fly room Meiosis Morgan and the chromosome theory 18 Theories of the gene Competing theories of inheritance The Mendelian explanation of continuous variation 19 The chemical basis of inheritance The discovery of the double helix Genetics in modern thought 20 Epilogue: Toward a science of science Scientists and the scientific milieu The maturation of theories and concepts Impediments to the maturation of theories and concepts The sciences and the external milieu Progress in science Notes References Glossary Index

Coevolution: Genes, Culture, and Human Diversity

Abstract: Charles Darwin's "On the Origins of Species" had two principal goals: to show that species had not been separately created and to show that natural selection had been the main force behind their proliferation and descent from common ancestors. In "Coevolution," the author proposes a powerful new theory of cultural evolution--that is, of the descent with modification of the shared conceptual systems we call "cultures"--that is parallel in many ways to Darwin's theory of organic evolution. The author suggests that a process of cultural selection, or preservation by preference, driven chiefly by choice or imposition depending on the circumstances, has been the main but not exclusive force of cultural change. He shows that this process gives rise to five major patterns or "modes" in which cultural change is at odds with genetic change. Each of the five modes is discussed in some detail and its existence confirmed through one or more case studies chosen for their heuristic value, the robustness of their data, and their broader implications. But "Coevolution" predicts not simply the existence of the five modes of gene-culture relations; it also predicts their relative importance in the ongoing dynamics of cultural change in particular cases. The case studies themselves are lucid and innovative reexaminations of an array of oft-pondered anthropological topics--plural marriage, sickle-cell anemia, basic color terms, adult lactose absorption, incest taboos, headhunting, and cannibalism. In a general case, the author's goal is to demonstrate that an evolutionary analysis of both genes and culture has much to contribute to our understanding of human diversity, particularly behavioral diversity, and thus to the resolution of age-old questions about nature and nurture, genes and culture.

Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution

Abstract: Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution, quipped Theodosius Dobzhansky. The theory of evolution argues that each biological species was not suddenly and independently created but that all life forms are interrelated by virtue of having descended from common ancestors through the accumulation of modifications. Indeed, nothing we know about living organisms would make any sense if they were not so interrelated. And the theory that biological species are descended from common ancestors provides an indispensable heuristic to understand why living organisms are what they are and do what they do.

Toward a phylogenetic system of biological nomenclature

Abstract: Despite the widely held belief that modem biological taxonomy is evolutionary, some of the most fundamental concepts and principles in the current system of biological nomenclature are based on a nonevolutionary convention that pre-dates widespread acceptance of an evolutionary world view by more than a century. The development of a phylogenetic system of nomenclature requires reformulating these concepts and principles so that they are no longer based on the Linnean categories but on the tenet of common descent.