Philosophy mirrors life in that it can take many different twists and turns that you don't expect.
Similarily, with evolution. Evolution is equally -- and similarily -- involved in both life and evolution.
As a philosopher, there are many things that have already happened that I would have never dreamed ten or twenty years ago would happen.
a. I never expected that I would write about religion.
b. I never expected that I would write about mythology.
c. I never expected that I would write about evolution.
d. I never thought that helping my daughter to organize her English essay on 'The Chrysalids' would stimulate at least three new essays in my own work: this one here on the 'Different Influences on The DGB Theory of Multi-bi-Polar-Dialectic Evolution'; the one after this one on: 'Evolution, The Dialectic -- and The Chrysalids'; and the essay to come after that on 'Jeffrey Masson as a real live example of David Strorm, the main character from John Wyndham's provocative and most famous book -- 'The Chrysalids'.
Of course, every thing is subject to change.
But for starters, in this essay, we will look at the main 'raw materials' -- the main ideas and theories -- that have influenced, and/or are in the process of influencing: 'The Evolution of The DGB Theory of Multiple-Bi-Polar-Dialectic Evolution.
I have already written several essays on evolution -- specifically, 'dialectic evolution' which encompasses DGB extrapolations of what Hegel wrote indirectly about all forms of social, cultural, historical, philosophical and political evolution, vs. what Darwin more directly and specifically wrote about 'the genetic, biological evolution of the species'. The two different theories can easily be 'cross-pollinated' or 'conceptually copulated' which, when you think about it, is what Hegel's dialectic theory is 'metaphorically all about' and what Darwin's theory of the evolution of the species is literally all about.
So our first two evolutionary theorists that we will 'conceptually cross-pollinate or copulate' are: 1. Hegel; and 2. Darwin.
But let's not stop here.
3. If you add Freud to the mix, then we could also say that human behavior is totally about the 'symbolic copulation between impulse and restraint' and furthermore about the 'symbolic copulation between life and death forces'.
4. Now let's introduce Adam Smith into our 'evolutionary theorizing' and say that economic life is about the symbolic copulation between 'supply and demand' and between 'self and social interest'.
5. And again let's not stop here. Let's now introduce Anaxamander into our evolutionary theorizing and state that: 'Life is about opposites coming into conflict with each other and trying to outduel each other, overpower each other, for dominance and superiority with the loser fading off into the shadows only to regroup and re-energize, mutate and compensate -- and then return again with renewed power, intelligence, and vigor.'
6. And now let's add Heraclitus and Plato into our evolutionary theorizing: 'Life is about opposites needing each other and being attracted to each other in order to become more united, balanced, and whole'. There is a Platonic myth here about man once being a 'hermaphrodite' and some God 'splitting man in half' -- creating men and women -- and the need to come back and find each other again to become 'dialectically united and whole'.
7. Now, let's add The Chinese Han Philosophers to our mix here with their concepts of 'yin' (femininity) and 'yang' (masculinity') and their idea that 'health requires a balance between yin and yang'. One of the ideas that Freud played around with at one time (through the influence of Fliess) was the idea of 'bisexuality in both men and women'. Biologically, there is significant evidence to support at least some aspects of this theory: specifically, the fact that both men and women have 'testosterone' and 'estrogen' in their bodies (albeit in differing amounts). And psychologically, Jung in particular has developed the idea of 'psychic bisexuality' meaning we all have both 'masculine' and 'feminine' aspects to our personality. This may be no more than our 'introjected mother' and 'introjected father' occupying different 'ego states' in our personality.
Let me quickly introduce evolutionary theorist number 8:
8. Walter B. Cannon: author of 'The Wisdom of The Body' (1932)and the creator of the most important evolutionary concept of -- 'homeostasis' or 'homeostatic balance'.
And number 9 we will not associate with any one theorist but rather a whole host of theorists:
9. Mutationism, Neo-Mutationism, and Modern Synthesis:
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From the internet...Wikipedia...
Mutationism
The discovery of genetics challenges Darwin's theory
As the 20th century dawned, geneticists learned that discontinuous variations could arise by mutation and be transmitted to offspring via stable non-mixing factors: the rules of transmission of these factors constitute Mendel’s laws. A more revolutionary discovery, from the perspective of evolutionary theory, was that slight variations in quantitative traits that emerge reliably every generation— like the "fluctuations" on which Charles Darwin built his theory— were not heritable. This result was shown in a series of breeding experiments carried out by the Danish biologist Wilhelm Johannsen. From mixtures of different true-breeding varieties of beans of different sizes, selection on a breeding population could be used to sort out the large from the small varieties, but would not change their heights, even though fluctuations in size continued to appear each generation, following the familiar normal distribution.
This result was understood widely as a direct threat to the "Natural Selection" theory expressed by Darwin in The Origin of Species. In this theory, infinitesimal hereditary variation arises automatically in response to the effect of "altered conditions of life" on "the sexual organs". Because these continuous “fluctuations” occur automatically whenever conditions change, adaptation happens automatically (and by infinitesimal increments: see gradualism) as selection preserves fluctuations that fit the new conditions. That is, Darwin proposed a mechanism of variation that made it possible to take infinitesimal hereditary variation for granted, so that it would always be present when needed, but genetics showed that the kind of variation that arises automatically in response to altered conditions is not genetic variation, but environmental variation.
Though later associated with Mendelian genetics, mutationism began in the 1890’s (prior to the rediscovery of Mendel’s laws) with the studies of Hugo De Vries and William Bateson on naturally occurring discontinuous variations; their thoughts concerning the role of discontinuity in evolution drew on earlier ideas of William Keith Brooks, Francis Galton, and Thomas Henry Huxley.
The "mutationist" view began by abandoning Darwin's idea of automatic fluctuation, embracing instead the concept that variation emerges by rare events of mutation. This view was expressed in the writings of key founders of genetics, including Thomas Hunt Morgan, Reginald Punnett, Wilhelm Johannsen, Hugo de Vries, William Bateson and others. Assuming that heritable variation cannot be taken for granted, the mutationists saw evolution as a two-step process of the chance occurrence of a mutation, followed by its persistence or elimination (selection). The mutationists denied that selection is creative, and they gave mutation a certain measure of control over the course of evolution [1].
A common misconception is that the mutationists denied selection. Instead, mutationists such as Morgan simply understood its role differently. In the following passage, Morgan (writing in 1916 [2]) displays a clear understanding of the concept of the probability of fixation of a new mutation, which might be deleterious, neutral, or advantageous:
"If through a mutation a character appears that is neither advantageous nor disadvantageous, but indifferent, the chance that it may become established in the race is extremely small, although by good luck such a thing may occur rarely. It makes no difference whether the character in question is a dominant or a recessive one, the chance of its becoming established is exactly the same. If through a mutation a character appears that has an injurious effect, however slight this may be, it has practically no chance of becoming established. If through a mutation a character appears that has a beneficial influence on the individual, the chance that the individual will survive is increased, not only for itself, but for all of its descendants that come to inherit this character. It is this increase in the number of individuals possessing a particular character, that might have an influence on the course of evolution."
Morgan resisted calling this process "Natural Selection" because it differed so much from Darwin's view.
[edit] Demise of Mutationism and Rise of the Modern Synthesis
While the mutationist view was very popular in the first 3 decades of the 20th century, it was replaced eventually by the Darwinian view expressed in the Modern Synthesis. In 1902 G. Udny Yule argued that a trait reflecting effects of multiple Mendelian characters could show a normal distribution. Thus, even though variations that arise in response to altered conditions are environmental and non-heritable (contrary to Darwin's assumptions), some of the continuous variation in natural species could have a genetic basis, and could serve as the Mendelian basis for Darwinian gradualism. Nevertheless, the synthesis of Mendelian genetics and Darwinism later put forth by R. A. Fisher and others did not develop immediately, for various reasons: it could be doubted that natural selection was sufficiently powerful to act on infinitesimal differences; it could be doubted that natural populations had enough heritable variation to support a Darwinian view; a common (erroneous) belief at the time (following Francis Galton's notion of regression to the mean) held that even heritable fluctuations could not lead to large or qualitative changes; and some advocates of Darwinism, such as Karl Pearson, refused to accept Mendelian genetics. A key conceptual innovation of the Modern Synthesis, crucial for its acceptance [1], was the "gene pool" concept, which argued that natural populations "maintain" abundant heritable variation through a combination of recombination, mixis, recessivity, heterosis and balancing selection.
At the time of the Darwin centennial in Cambridge in 1909, Mutationism and Lamarckism were contrasted with Darwin's “Natural Selection” as competing ideas; 50 years later, at the University of Chicago centennial [3] of the publication of The Origin of Species, mutationism (like Lamarckism) was no longer seriously considered.
Nevertheless, after another 50 years, evolutionary biologists are re-considering the mutationist view.
[edit] Contemporary status of mutationism
With the arrival of molecular biology, scientists studying "molecular evolution" began to suggest mutational explanations for patterns such as genomic nucleotide composition [4], and eventually it became a characteristic of the field of molecular evolution to emphasize the role of mutation in evolution [5]. Contemporary interest in mutationism is revealed by articles in mainstream research journals that advocate mutationist ideas, using the label "mutationism" [1] or "neo-mutationism" [6][7]. This perspective often is indicated, not by the term "mutationism", but by terms such as "new mutations" or "mutation-driven evolution". These writings suggest that, since the molecular revolution in the 1960’s and 1970’s, evidence has been accumulating that evolution depends on mutation in a way that was not envisioned in the Modern Synthesis. The dependence is sufficiently sensitive that rates of evolution reflect even subtle biases in mutation such as transition:transversion bias or GC:AT bias phenomenon.
Examples in which mutation-biased evolution is not just plausible but seems to be the received view are in regard to genomic GC-content and the origin of isochore[8]. In the case of the GC-content, because the bond is stronger and more resilient between the G:C pairs than between A:T pairs, selectionists have speculated that a high GC-content was an adaption to harsh conditions, either high temperature [9] or UV radiation[10]. Both hypotheses were later disproved. [11][12] Mutationists believe it is mostly the consequence of a mutational bias, called the GC mutational pressure.[13][14][15]
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10. Modern Evolutionary Synthesis (An extrapolation and example of Hegelian Dialectic Theory: 1. Thesis, 2. Anti-Thesis, 3. Synthesis)
From the internetm Wikipedia
Modern evolutionary synthesis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
"Evolutionary theory" redirects here. For the sociological theory, see sociobiology.
Part of the Biology series on
Evolution
Introduction
Mechanisms and processes
Adaptation
Genetic drift
Gene flow
Mutation
Natural selection
Speciation
Research and history
Evidence
Evolutionary history of life
History
Modern synthesis
Social effect
Theory and fact
Objections / Controversy
Evolutionary biology fields
Cladistics
Ecological genetics
Evolutionary development
Human evolution
Molecular evolution
Phylogenetics
Population genetics
The modern evolutionary synthesis is a union of ideas from several biological specialties which forms a logical account of evolution. This synthesis has been generally accepted by most working biologists. The synthesis was produced over about a decade (1936–1947), and the development of population genetics (1918–1932) was the stimulus. This showed that Mendelian genetics was consistent with natural selection and gradual evolution. The synthesis is still, to a large extent, the current paradigm in evolutionary biology.
Julian Huxley invented the term, when he produced his book, Evolution: The Modern Synthesis (1942). Other major figures in the modern synthesis include R. A. Fisher, Theodosius Dobzhansky, J.B.S. Haldane, Sewall Wright, E.B. Ford, Ernst Mayr, Bernhard Rensch, Sergei Chetverikov, George Gaylord Simpson, and G. Ledyard Stebbins.
The modern synthesis solved difficulties and confusions caused by the specialisation and poor communication between biologists in the early years of the twentieth century. Discoveries of early geneticists were difficult to reconcile with gradual evolution and the mechanism of natural selection. The synthesis reconciled the two schools of thought, while providing evidence that studies of populations in the field were crucial to evolutionary theory. It drew together ideas from several branches of biology that had become separated, particularly genetics, cytology, systematics, botany, morphology, ecology and paleontology.
Modern evolutionary synthesis is also referred to as the new synthesis, the modern synthesis, and the evolutionary synthesis.
Contents [hide]
1 Developments leading up to the synthesis
1.1 1859–1899
1.2 1900–1915
1.3 The foundation of population genetics
2 The modern synthesis
3 Tenets of the modern synthesis
4 Further advances
5 See also
6 Footnotes
7 References
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11. Compensation Theory (Alfred Adler) (From the internet...By Henry Stein, Phd)
The following Classical Adlerian quotations are from the Adlerian Translation Project Archives at the Alfred Adler Institute of San Francisco (AAISF/ATP). Selected works of Alfred Adler, Kurt Adler, Lydia Sicher, Alexander Mueller, Sophia de Vries, Anthony Bruck, Erwin Wexberg, Alexander Neuer, Sophie Lazarsfeld, Ida Loewy, Ferdinand Birnbaum, and other Classical Adlerians have been collected, translated, edited, and converted into electronic text. Sample quotations on a series of topics will be featured each week. Your comments and questions may be posted on the Classical Adlerian Psychology Discussion Forum. All of this material is protected by copyright and may not be reproduced without the expressed consent of Dr. Stein.
Alfred Adler:
"The striving for significance, this sense of yearning, always points out to us that all psychological phenomena contain a movement that starts from a feeling of inferiority and reach upward. The theory of Individual Psychology of psychological compensation states that the stronger the feeling of inferiority, the higher the goal for personal power." (From a new translation of "Progress in Individual Psychology," [1923] a journal article by Alfred Adler, in the AAISF/ATP Archives.
".....compensation is derived from whatever lifts him above his present inadequate state and makes him superior to all others. This brings the child to setting a goal, a fictitious goal of superiority which will transform his poverty into wealth, his subordination into dominance, his suffering into happiness and pleasure, his ignorance into omniscience, and his ineptness into creativity. This goal is set higher and will be adhered to more tenaciously the longer and more clearly the child perceives his insecurity, the more he suffers from physical or mental impediments, and the more intensely he feels being neglected. If this goal is to be discerned the child must be observed at play, at freely selected activities, or when he fantasizes about his future occupation." (From a new translation of "Individual Psychology, its Premises and Results," [1914] in The Practice and Theory of Individual Psychology, by Alfred Adler, in the AAISF/ATP Archives.
"The mechanism of the striving for compensation with which the soul strives to neutralize the torturing feeling of inferiority has its analogy in the organic world. It is a well known fact that those organs of our body which are essential for life produce an overgrowth and over-function when through damage to their normal state their productivity is lessened. Thus in difficulties of circulation the heart enlarges and becomes more powerful, seeming to draw its new strength from the whole body, until it reaches a stage in which it is more powerful than a normal heart. Similarly does the soul under pressure of the feeling of inferiority, of the torturing thought that the individual is small and helpless, attempt with all its might to become master over this inferiority complex. Where the feeling of inferiority is highly intensified to the degree that the child believes that he will never be able to compensate for his weakness, the danger arises that in his striving for overcompensation, will aim to overbalance the scales. The striving for power and dominance may become exaggerated and intensified until it must be called pathological. The ordinary relationships of life will never satisfy such children. Well adapted to their goal, their movements will have to have a certain grandiose gesture about them. They seek to secure their position in life with extraordinary efforts, with greater haste and impatience, with more intense impulses, without consideration of any one else. Through these exaggerated movements toward their exaggerated goal of dominance these children become more noticeable, their attacks on the lives of others necessitate that they defend their own lives. They are against the world, and the world is against them." (From "The Feeling of Inferiority and the Striving for Recognition," [1927] a journal article by Alfred Adler, in the AAISF/ATP Archives.
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12. Intelligent Design Theory
From the internet...
Intelligent design
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
For other uses, see Intelligent design (disambiguation).
Part of a series of articles on
Intelligent design
Concepts
Irreducible complexity
Specified complexity
Fine-tuned universe
Intelligent designer
Theistic realism
Neo-creationism
Intelligent design
movement
Timeline
Discovery Institute
Center for Science and Culture
Wedge strategy
Intelligent design in politics
Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
Campaigns
Critical Analysis of Evolution
Teach the Controversy
Reactions
Jewish · Roman Catholic
Scientific organizations
Intelligent design is the term used for the assertion that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."[1][2] It is a modern form of the traditional teleological argument for the existence of God that avoids specifying the nature or identity of the designer.[3] The idea was developed by a group of American creationists who reformulated their argument in the creation-evolution controversy to circumvent court rulings that prohibit the teaching of creationism as science.[4][5][6] Intelligent design's leading proponents, all of whom are associated with the Discovery Institute, a politically conservative think tank,[7][8] believe the designer to be the God of Christianity.[9][10]
Advocates of intelligent design argue that it is a scientific theory,[11] and seek to fundamentally redefine science to accept supernatural explanations.[12] The consensus in the scientific community is that intelligent design is not science.[13][14][15][16] The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has stated that "creationism, intelligent design, and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life or of species are not science because they are not testable by the methods of science."[17] The U.S. National Science Teachers Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science have termed it pseudoscience.[18] Others in the scientific community have concurred, and some have called it junk science.[19][20]
The concept of intelligent design originated in response to the 1987 United States Supreme Court Edwards v. Aguillard ruling involving separation of church and state.[4] Its first significant published use was in Of Pandas and People, a 1989 textbook intended for high-school biology classes.[21] Several additional books on the subject were published in the 1990s. By the mid-1990s, intelligent design proponents had begun clustering around the Discovery Institute and more publicly advocating the inclusion of intelligent design in public school curricula.[22] With the Discovery Institute and its Center for Science and Culture serving a central role in planning and funding, the "intelligent design movement" grew increasingly visible in the late 1990s and early 2000s, culminating in the 2005 Dover trial which challenged the intended use of intelligent design in public school science classes.[7]
In Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, a group of parents of high-school students challenged a public school district requirement for teachers to present intelligent design in biology classes as an alternative "explanation of the origin of life". U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III ruled that intelligent design is not science, that it "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents", and that the school district's promotion of it therefore violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.[23]
Contents [hide]
1 Overview
2 Origins of the concept
3 Origins of the term
4 Integral concepts
4.1 Irreducible complexity
4.2 Specified complexity
4.3 Fine-tuned Universe
4.4 Intelligent designer
5 Movement
5.1 Religion and leading proponents
5.2 Reaction from other creationist groups
5.3 Polls
6 Creating and teaching the controversy
6.1 Defining science
6.2 Peer review
6.3 Intelligence as an observable quality
6.4 Arguments from ignorance
7 Kitzmiller trial
7.1 Reaction
8 Status outside the United States
8.1 Europe
8.2 Elsewhere
9 See also
10 References and notes
11 Further reading
12 External links
12.1 ID perspectives
12.2 Non-ID perspectives
12.3 Media articles
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DGB
As previously stated, the subject of evolution very quickly becomes very complicated and intertwined...
We have listed a smorgasboard of 12 different ideas and/or theories above, along with the main creative theorists behind these ideas.
The example of evolution and the interconnection of evolution, life, and death brings many if not all of the main ideas in Hegel's Hotel together in one flourish.
The main DGB philosophical -- and evolutionary -- post-Hegelian, post-Darwinian, post-Nietzschean, post-Freudian...assumptions are that:
1. Life is essentially 'dialectically engaged' along many, many multiple bi-polar dimensions, each intertwining and affecting each other in their ultimate synthesis of 'extreme dialectic polarities negotiating towards the dialectic middle' and 'different dialectic bi-polarities separating and individuating from the middle towards the opposite extremes'.
My essential thinking is that Darwin's theory of evolution was far too restrictive, too tightly wound around the ree different ideas which were the respective issues of:
1. Sexual copulation and sexual diversity leading to genetic bio-diversity on the basis of mainly random chance;
2. Functionality and survival (natural selection) of the species dictating which genetic characteristics in a particular species are 'weaned out' and which genetic characteristic continue to 'flourish' and continue the biological evolution of the species, ultimately leading to 'new species'.
Call this 'Darwinian brand' of evolution -- 'genetic evolution' and 'species evolution'. Here are the main ingredients of Darwin's theory of evolution as pulled off the intenet. This subject matter quickly becomes very complicated. We will try to stay with the basics here before I deviate off the 'normal, beaten path' and take the theory of evolution into some different -- and more unusual -- areas. This too is what 'evolution' is about -- 'deviations off the normal, beaten path'. In this regard DGB Philosophy makes this important distinction -- the distinction between:
1. 'associative evolution' and; 2. 'distinctive or differential evolution'.
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From the internet...Wikipedia..
Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species (published 24 November 1859) is a seminal work in scientific literature and a landmark work in evolutionary biology.[1] The book's full title is On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. In the 6th edition of 1872 the title was changed to The Origin of Species.[2] It introduced the theory that populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection. Darwin's book contains a wealth of evidence that the diversity of life arose through a branching pattern of evolution and common descent – evidence which he had accumulated on the voyage of the Beagle in the 1830s and expanded through research, correspondence, and experiments after his return.[3]
The book is readable even for the non-specialist and attracted widespread interest on publication. The topic of evolution had been highly controversial during the first half of the 19th century, since transmutation of species contradicted the long accepted idea that species were unchanging parts of a designed hierarchy. It had been the subject of political and theological debates, with competing ideas of biology trying to explain new findings. Support for evolutionary ideas was already growing among a new generation of professional anatomists and the general public, but to a scientific establishment closely tied to the Church of England, science was part of natural theology. An older generation of naturalists found it very hard to accept that humans descended from animals.
The mass of evidence presented by a scientist of Darwin's eminence generated respectful discussion on scientific, philosophical, and religious grounds. The debate over the book would lead to widespread acceptance among educated people that evolution had occurred, and contributed significantly to the movement to professionalize British science by replacing natural theology with methodological naturalism and ending the Church's domination of the scientific community. The scientific theory of evolution has continued to evolve since Darwin's contributions, but natural selection remains the most widely accepted scientific explanation for the development of new species. Despite the overwhelming scientific consensus, political and religious challenges to the theory of evolution continue in some countries.
Contents [hide]
1 Summary
2 Background
2.1 Developments before Darwin's theory
2.2 Inception of Darwin's theory
2.3 Further development
3 Publication
3.1 Events leading to publication
3.2 Publication and subsequent editions
4 Content
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Variation under domestication and under nature
4.3 Struggle for existence, natural selection, and divergence
4.4 Variation and heredity
4.5 Difficulties for the theory
4.6 Geologic record
4.7 Geographic distribution
4.8 Classification, morphology, embryology, rudimentary organs
4.9 Concluding remarks
5 Public reaction
5.1 Religious
5.2 Reception outside of Great Britain
5.3 Impact on the scientific community
6 Comparison with Wallace's ideas
7 Notes
8 References
9 Further reading
9.1 Contemporary reviews
10 External links
Summary
Darwin's theory is based on key observations and inferences drawn from them:[4]
1. Every species is fertile enough that if all offspring survived to reproduce themselves there would be population growth.
2. Yet populations remain roughly the same size, with small changes.
3. Resources such as food are limited and are relatively stable over time.
4. A struggle for survival ensues.
5. In sexually reproducing species, generally no two individuals are identical.
6. Some of these variations directly affect the ability of an individual to survive in a given environment.
7. Much of this variation is inheritable.
8. Individuals less suited to the environment are less likely to survive and less likely to reproduce, while individuals more suited to the environment are more likely to survive and more likely to reproduce.
9. The individuals that survive are most likely to leave their inheritable traits to future generations.
10. This slowly effected process results in populations that adapt to the environment over time, and ultimately, after interminable generations, these variations accumulate to form new varieties, and ultimately, new species.
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And again from the internet...Wikipedia
Natural selection is the process by which favorable heritable traits become more common in successive generations of a population of reproducing organisms, and unfavorable heritable traits become less common, due to differential reproduction of genotypes. Natural selection acts on the phenotype, or the observable characteristics of an organism, such that individuals with favorable phenotypes are more likely to survive and reproduce than those with less favorable phenotypes. The phenotype's genetic basis, the genotype associated with the favorable phenotype, will increase in frequency over the following generations. Over time, this process may result in adaptations that specialize organisms for particular ecological niches and may eventually result in the emergence of new species. In other words, natural selection is a mechanism by which evolution may take place within a population of organisms.
Natural selection is one of the cornerstones of modern biology. The term was introduced by Charles Darwin in his groundbreaking 1859 book On the Origin of Species[1] in which natural selection was described by analogy to artificial selection, a process by which animals with traits considered desirable by human breeders are systematically favored for reproduction. The concept of natural selection was originally developed in the absence of a valid theory of inheritance; at the time of Darwin's writing, nothing was known of modern genetics. Although Gregor Mendel, the father of modern genetics, was a contemporary of Darwin's, his work would lie in obscurity until the early 20th century. The union of traditional Darwinian evolution with subsequent discoveries in classical and molecular genetics is termed the modern evolutionary synthesis. Although other mechanisms of molecular evolution, such as the neutral theory advanced by Motoo Kimura, have been identified as important causes of genetic diversity, natural selection remains the single primary explanation for adaptive evolution.
Contents [hide]
1 General principles
1.1 Nomenclature and usage
1.2 Fitness
1.3 Types of selection
1.4 Sexual selection
2 An example: antibiotic resistance
2.1 Directionality of selection
2.2 Selection and genetic variation
2.2.1 Mutation selection balance
2.2.2 Genetic linkage
3 Evolution by means of natural selection
3.1 Speciation
4 Historical development
4.1 Pre-Darwinian theories
4.2 Darwin's theory
4.3 Modern evolutionary synthesis
5 Impact of the idea
5.1 Social and psychological theory
5.2 Information and systems theory
6 See also
7 References
8 Further reading
9 External links
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These are the 'raw materials' that have influenced -- and are in the process of influencing -- The Evolution of The DGB Multi-Bi-Polar-Dialectic Theory of Evolution.
The next essay will seek to start 'fusing', 'integrating' or 'syntheszing' all these different influences. DGB Philosophy is all about 'building different dialectic bridges' between different influencing theorists.
Stay tuned, as we move forward with our advancing theory of evolution.
-- dgb, March 12th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
