Who owns the theory of the evolution of the development of the world. evolutionary theory. Has anything changed

who created the first evolutionary theory and got the best answer

Answer from Ѐok.n Dog[guru]
Jean Baptiste Lamarck
Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet Lamarck (August 1, 1744 - December 18, 1829) was a French naturalist.
Lamarck became the first biologist who tried to create a coherent and holistic theory of the evolution of the living world (Lamarck's Theory).
Unappreciated by his contemporaries, half a century later, his theory became the subject of heated discussions that have not stopped in our time.

Lamarck published his revolutionary book in 1809 and called it The Philosophy of Zoology, although there we are talking not only about animals, but about all living things. It should not be thought that all those interested in science at that time were delighted with this book and understood that Lamarck had set a great task for scientists. It has often happened in the history of science that great ideas remained incomprehensible to contemporaries and were recognized only many years later.
So it happened with the ideas of Lamarck. Some scientists did not pay any attention to his book, others laughed at it. Napoleon, to whom Lamarck took it into his head to present his book, scolded him so much that he could not refrain from tears.
At the end of his life, Lamarck went blind and, forgotten by everyone, died on December 18, 1829, 85 years old. Only his daughter Cornelia remained with him. She took care of him until her death and wrote under his dictation.
The words of Cornelia, imprinted on the monument to Lamarck, turned out to be prophetic; posterity really appreciated the works of Lamarck and recognized him as a great scientist. But this did not happen soon, many years after Lamarck's death, after Darwin's remarkable work On the Origin of Species appeared in 1859. Darwin confirmed the correctness of the evolutionary theory, proved it on many facts and made him remember his forgotten predecessor.

Answer from 2 answers[guru]

Hello! Here is a selection of topics with answers to your question: who created the first evolutionary theory

Answer from lochi[guru]
Charles Darwin?

Answer from soul key[guru]
jean baptiste lamarck

Answer from Lola[active]
Lamarck is considered the first evolutionist, although he did not prove his theory

Answer from Alexey Pilipenko[guru]
And what is the second one?
do you still believe in evolution? Simple facts: monkeys have 48 chromosomes, humans have 46! sometimes people give birth to downs, which have 47 chromosomes as a result of some kind of division disorder ... At the same time, downs are not viable! ! Now think about how likely it is that the monkeys had at least 2 people, a boy and a girl, while they must live to childbearing age and give birth to a bunch of children! ! Agree that this is, in principle, unlikely! At the same time, given the diversity of the animal and flora, such "errors" should actually appear quite often!
Over the past 100 years, not a single mutant, viable and capable of reproduction, has appeared! ! And for a new branch, at least two are needed, and at the same time a boy and a girl, etc.

evolutionary theory the doctrine of general laws and driving forces historical development living nature. The purpose of this doctrine: to identify patterns of development of the organic world for the subsequent management of this process. Evolutionary doctrine solves the problems of knowledge general patterns evolution, causes and mechanisms of transformation of living things at all levels of its organization: molecular, subcellular, cellular, tissue, organ, organism, population, biogeocenotic, biospheric.

The problem of the origin of life has now acquired an irresistible charm for all mankind. It not only attracts the close attention of scientists from different countries and specialties, but in general is of interest to all people of the world.

It is now generally accepted that the emergence of life on Earth was a natural process, quite amenable to scientific research. This process was based on the evolution of carbon compounds, which took place in the Universe long before the appearance of our solar system and only continued during the formation of the planet Earth - during the formation of its crust, hydrosphere and atmosphere.

Since the beginning of life, nature has been in continuous development. The process of evolution has been going on for hundreds of millions of years, and its result is a variety of forms of life, which in many respects has not yet been fully described and classified.

In the history of the development of the theory of evolution, several stages can be distinguished:

1. Pre-Darwinian period (until the middle of the 19th century): the works of C. Linnaeus, Lamarck, Roulier, and others.

2. Darwinian period (2nd half of the 19th century - 20s of the 20th century): the formation of classical Darwinism and the main anti-Darwinian trends in evolutionary thought.

3. The crisis of classical Darwinism (20s - 30s of the XX century), associated with the emergence of genetics and the transition to population thinking.

4. Formation and development of the synthetic theory of evolution (30s - 50s of the XX century).

5. Attempts to create a modern theory of evolution (60s - 90s of the XX century).

The origin of the idea of ​​the development of living things refers to the heyday of philosophical thought ancient east and Ancient Greece. By the second half of the 19th century, vast factual material on botany, zoology, and anatomy had been accumulated. There are ideas about the variability of species, which were supported by the rapid development of agriculture, the breeding of new breeds and varieties. A major contribution to the development of biology was made by C. Linnaeus, who proposed a classification system for animals and plants with the help of subordinate taxonomic groups. He introduced binary nomenclature (double species name). In 1808, in the work "Philosophy of Zoology" J.B. Lamarck raises the question of the causes and mechanisms of evolutionary transformations, expounds the first time theory of evolution. The evolutionary theory of Lamarck, the creation of the cellular theory, the data of comparative anatomy, taxonomy, paleontology and embryology prepared the basis for creating the doctrine of the evolution of the organic world. Such a doctrine, which is the largest generalization of the natural sciences of the 19th century, was created by C. Darwin (1809-1882). C. Darwin in 1859 published his main work "The Origin of Species by natural selection”, in which, using a huge amount of factual material, he showed the patterns of evolution of organisms of human animal origin.

The main provisions of Darwin's theory:

1. Heredity and variability are the properties of organisms on which evolution is based. C. Darwin distinguished the following forms of variability: definite (according to modern concepts, non-hereditary or modificational variability) and indefinite (hereditary) variability. He attached the leading importance to evolution to the latter.

2. Natural selection is the driving, guiding factor of evolution. C. Darwin came to the conclusion about the inevitability in nature of the selective destruction of less adapted individuals and the reproduction of more adapted ones. Natural selection in nature is carried out through the struggle for existence. Ch. Darwin distinguished between intraspecific, interspecific and struggle with factors of inanimate nature.

3. Based on ideas about the origin modern species through natural selection, the theory of evolution solves the problem of expediency, fitness in nature. Fitness is always relative. According to Ch. Darwin, the evolving unit is the species.

4. Diversity of species is considered as the result of natural selection and the associated divergence (divergence) of features.

Schematically, the essence of Charles Darwin's theory can be depicted as follows: the struggle for existence is natural - selection - speciation.

The value of Ch. Darwin's theoretical works cannot be underestimated. His work revolutionized the ideas of biologists. First, it became clear that the natural system of living organisms should be built on the basis of phylogeny - on the basis of family relationships between organisms. The presence of expediency in living nature can now be explained as the inevitable result of evolution through natural selection. The data of such old sciences as anatomy and morphology, embryology, paleontology, biogeography have received a completely new meaning.

The simplicity and clarity of the concept made it very attractive. However, from the standpoint of genetic Darwinism, it is difficult to explain many actually observed phenomena. In particular, animal and plant species always differ from their ancestors (or related species) by a complex of polygenic traits, and each of the mutations taken separately is often harmful. Within the framework of this concept, it is also difficult to explain the phenomenon of fixation of modifications, the emergence of new features that did not previously exist in the original species. The reasons for the repetition of phylogenesis in ontogeny remained a mystery.

In addition, in the form that existed at the beginning of the 20th century, Darwin's theory could not give a satisfactory explanation for the uneven pace of evolution and the causes of the mass extinction of large taxa. This served as a reason for many scientists of that time to abandon this theory.

However, by the middle of the 20th century, the main objections to the theory of Charles Darwin were removed. The decisive role in this was played by the work of Russian scientists.

In 1921 Aleksey Nikolaevich Severtsov (1866 - 1936) published the work "Etudes on the Theory of Evolution", in which he outlined the theory of phylembryogenesis. Ivan Ivanovich Shmalgauzen (1884 - 1963), a student of A. N. Severtsov, continued this direction in the work "The Organism as a Whole in Individual and Historical Development" (1938). It became clear that evolution takes place by changing ontogeny. In the course of evolution, new stages of development are added to the stages of development available to the ancestors. In the future, as a result of rationalization and autonomization, ontogeny is restructured and simplified, but at the same time, “correlations of general meaning” (shaping apparatuses) remain unchanged. It is by such "nodal" points that we judge the repetition of phylogenesis in ontogenesis.

The principles of phylogenetic changes in organs developed by A. N. Severtsov (1931) made it possible to explain how new organs and functions arise in the course of evolution. Around the same time, the autogenetic concepts of geneticists were finally refuted (the spontaneous nature of the occurrence of mutations was emphasized), since. convincing evidence of the influence of physical and chemical factors on the mutation process was obtained (G.A. Nadson and G.S. Filippov, 1925; G.J. Möller, 1927, L. Stedler, 1928; V.V. Sakharov, 1932, etc. .).

American paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson (1902 - 1984), solving the problem of uneven rates of evolution, introduced the concept of the taxon's adaptive zone. The entry of a taxon into a new adaptive zone causes a very rapid, on a geological time scale, its evolution and differentiation (quantum evolution). As the adaptive zone becomes saturated, a period of slow bradial evolution begins.

The impetus for the synthesis of genetics and Darwin's evolutionary theory was the brilliant work Soviet geneticist Sergei Sergeevich Chetverikov (1880 - 1959) "On some moments of evolutionary teaching from the point of view of modern genetics" (1926). The ideas of S.S. Chetverikov served as the basis for the further development of population genetics in the works of S. Site, R. Fisher, N.P. Dubinin, F. G. Dobzhansky, J. Huxley and others. Rethinking a number of provisions of Darwin's theory from the standpoint of genetics at the beginning of the 20th century turned out to be extremely fruitful. In the most famous form, the results of the "new synthesis" are presented in the book by F. G. Dobzhansky "Genetics and the Origin of Species" (1937). This year is considered the year of the emergence of the "synthetic theory of evolution". For the first time, the concept of "isolating mechanisms of evolution" was formulated - those reproductive barriers that separate the gene pool of one species from the gene pools of other species. The term "modern" or "evolutionary synthesis" comes from the title of J. Huxley's book "Evolution: the modern synthesis" (1942). The expression "synthetic theory of evolution" in the exact application to this theory was first used by J. Simpson in 1949.

In the 1960s, research various forms selection (driving, stabilizing and disruptive) by F. G. Dobzhansky, J. M. Smith, E. Ford and others showed that the rate of moving selection in natural and experimental populations is often much higher than previously thought. When studying the mechanisms of adaptation of insects to DDT, it was also shown that evolution occurs through the directed selection of a combination of small mutations, exactly as S.S. Chetverikov believed, and not through the selection of newly emerging “beneficial” mutations.

Progress in studying the causes of the mass extinction of taxa and the patterns of ecosystem evolution began only at the end of the 70s of the 20th century, after the publication of the works of the Soviet paleontologist Vladimir Vasilyevich Zherikhin (1945 - 2001). He managed to demonstrate that the cause of mass extinctions is the global restructuring of the biosphere - biogeocenotic crises. The synthetic theory is currently the dominant evolutionary theory in biology. However, many authors note that the accepted simplifications in the framework of this theory lead to a significant discrepancy between its predictions and observational results. Such contradictions concern the rate of evolution of taxa, discreteness of biological diversity (discreteness of parthenogenetic species), epigenetic processes in ontogeny, etc. As a result, at the end of the 20th century, in continuation of the ideas of Schmalhausen-Waddington, M.A. Shishkin put forward the “epigenetic theory of evolution” (1988 ). According to this concept, "... the direct subject of evolution is not genes, but integral systems of development, the fluctuations of which are stabilized as irreversible changes ... Evolutionary changes begin with the phenotype and spread as they stabilize in the direction of the genome, and not vice versa."

Research in the field of evolutionary biology at the end of the 20th century showed that, at the level of an organism, due to the complexity of the interaction of its subsystems, many evolutionary changes cannot be explained either by the direct action of selection or by correlative changes in traits that are functionally or morphogenetically related to those that are directly affected by fitness selection. To describe the mechanisms of such changes, a group of scientists led by A.S. Severtsov, a student of I.I. Shmalgauzen, began the development of the “episelection theory of evolution”.

Episelection theory considers the following phenomena:

1. The emergence of new or destruction of old morphogenetic correlations, which does not lead to a change in the definitive phenotype, but is expressed only in a change in the pattern of variability;

2. The emergence of morphological innovations based on the self-organization of development processes;

3. The emergence of new areas of selection as a result of changes in the genetic and non-genetic mechanisms of self-reproduction of phenotypes;

4. Directed changes in phenotypes as a result of random effects of selection for other traits.

How did the formation of the modern theory of evolution go? The main tasks of evolutionism changed at different stages of its development. In a very simplified form, we can say that in the XIX century. the most important task was to prove the reality of the evolution of the organic world; in the 20th century the causal explanation of the mechanisms and empirically established regularities of the evolutionary process came to the fore. However, in the first half of the 20th century. the attention of researchers was concentrated mainly on the processes of microevolution, while in the second, studies of molecular evolution were increasingly developed; next in line is the analysis of macroevolution and the new integration of all areas of evolutionary science.

Any evolutionary theory that claims to be complete and consistent must solve a number of fundamental problems, including:

1) common causes and driving forces of the evolution of organisms;

2) mechanisms for the development of adaptations (adaptation) of organisms to the conditions of their habitat and changes in these conditions;

3) the causes and mechanisms of the emergence of an amazing variety of forms of organisms, as well as the causes of similarities and differences between different species and their groups;

4) the reasons for evolutionary progress - the growing complication and improvement of the organization of living beings in the course of evolution - while maintaining more primitive and simply arranged species. Thus, modern evolutionary theory has developed three levels of consideration of evolutionary processes: genetic (synthetic theory of evolution), epigenetic (epigenetic theory) and episelective (episelection theory).

Prominent biologists of the 19th-20th centuries K.F. Rulye, brothers A.O. and V.O. Kovalevsky, I.I. Mechnikov, K.A. Timiryazev, A.N. Severtsov, V.A. Dogel, L.A. Orbeli, I.I. Schmalhausen, A.I. Oparin, A.L. Takhtadzhyan, A.V. Ivanov, M.S. Gilyarov without recourse to evolutionary theory did not conceive of their activities. This fruitful scientific tradition is continued by many Russian biologists, which was demonstrated by the conference " Contemporary Issues biological evolution” (2007), dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the State Darwin Museum. The interest of foreign researchers in evolutionary problems is also not weakening, but, on the contrary, is growing. Thus, the number of publications on the theory of evolution in the authoritative American journal "Phylosophy of Science" for the period 2000 - 2005. almost tripled compared to 1995-1999. (Blue-eyed, 2007).

An encouraging factor is what has long been ripening among many domestic researchers (S.E. Shnol, V.V. Zherikhin, A.S. Rautian, S.V. Bagotsky, S.N. Grinchenko, Yu.V. Mamkaev, V.V. Khlebovich, A.B. Savinov) understanding the need not to oppose alternative evolutionary concepts, but to identify points of contact and complementary elements. Such rational elements, according to the principle of integration of rational elements of the developed evolutionary theories (Savinov, 2008a), should be considered evolutionary provisions, which, firstly, do not contradict the laws of dialectical-materialistic philosophy, systemic-cybernetic provisions about adapting systems (Savinov, 2006); secondly, they are consistent with the achievements of the natural sciences and are verified by practice.

Thus, the development of the theory of evolution after the release of the famous book by Ch. Darwin "The Origin of Species" takes place along a "dialectical spiral": researchers return to the ideas expressed earlier by prominent biologists (J. B. Lamarck, Ch. Darwin, L. S. Berg and etc.), but interpreted taking into account new ideas. In the course of this process, it is important to avoid the mistakes caused, both before and now, by the absolutization of any views.

In 1859, the English naturalist Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species. Since then, evolutionary theory has been the key to explaining the laws of development of the organic world. It is taught in schools in biology classes, and even some churches have recognized its validity.

What is Darwin's theory?

Darwin's theory of evolution is the concept that all organisms descend from a common ancestor. It emphasizes the naturalistic origin of life with change. Complex creatures evolve from simpler ones, it takes time. Random mutations occur in the genetic code of an organism, useful ones are preserved, helping to survive. Over time, they accumulate, and the result is a different kind, not just a variation of the original, but a completely new creature.

The main provisions of Darwin's theory

Darwin's theory of the origin of man is included in the general theory of the evolutionary development of living nature. Darwin believed that Homo Sapiens descended from an inferior life form and shared a common ancestor with the ape. The same laws led to its appearance, thanks to which other organisms appeared. The evolutionary concept is based on the following principles:

1. Overproduction. Species populations remain stable because a small proportion of the offspring survive and reproduce.
2. Fight for survival. Children of every generation must compete to survive.
3. fixture. Adaptation is an inherited trait that increases the likelihood of surviving and reproducing in a particular environment.
4. Natural selection. The environment "chooses" living organisms with more suitable traits. The offspring inherit the best, and the species is improved for a particular habitat.
5. Speciation. Over generations, beneficial mutations gradually increase, while the bad ones disappear. Over time, the accumulated changes become so great that the result is the new kind.

Darwin's theory - fact or fiction?

Darwin's theory of evolution has been the subject of much debate for centuries. On the one hand, scientists can tell what ancient whales were like, but on the other hand, they lack fossil evidence. Creationists (adherents of the divine origin of the world) take this as proof that evolution did not happen. They scoff at the idea that a land whale ever existed.

Ambulocetus

Evidence for Darwin's theory

To the delight of Darwinists, in 1994, paleontologists found the fossil of Ambulocetus, a walking whale. Webbed front paws helped him move on land, and powerful hind legs and tail helped him swim deftly. AT last years find more and more remains of transitional species, the so-called "missing links". So, Charles Darwin's theory of the origin of man was supported by the discovery of the remains of Pithecanthropus, an intermediate species between ape and man. In addition to paleontological evidence, there is other evidence for evolutionary theory:

1. Morphological- according to Darwin's theory, each new organism is not created by nature from scratch, everything comes from a common ancestor. For example, the similar structure of the paws of a mole and the wings of a bat is not explained in terms of utility, they probably received it from a common ancestor. This also includes five-fingered limbs, a similar oral structure in different insects, atavisms, rudiments (organs that have lost their importance in the process of evolution).
2. Embryological- in all vertebrates there is a huge similarity of embryos. A human baby that has been in the womb for one month has gill sacs. This indicates that the ancestors were aquatic inhabitants.
3. Molecular genetic and biochemical- the unity of life at the level of biochemistry. If all organisms did not descend from one ancestor, they would have their own genetic code, but the DNA of all creatures consists of 4 nucleotides, and there are over 100 of them in nature.

Refutation of Darwin's theory

Darwin's theory is unprovable - this moment alone is enough for critics to question its entire validity. No one has ever observed macroevolution—no one has seen how one species evolved into another. And in general, when at least one monkey will already turn into a man? This question is asked by all those who doubt the validity of Darwin's arguments.

Facts that refute Darwin's theory:

1. Studies have shown that the planet Earth is approximately 20-30 thousand years old. Many geologists have been talking about this lately, studying the amount of cosmic dust on our planet, the age of rivers and mountains. Evolution, according to Darwin, took billions of years.
2. Humans have 46 chromosomes, while apes have 48. This does not fit in with the idea that humans and apes had a common ancestor. Having “lost” the chromosomes along the way from the monkey, the species could not evolve into a reasonable one. Over the past few thousand years, not one whale has come to land, and not one monkey has turned into a man.
3. Natural beauty, to which, for example, anti-Darwinists attribute the peacock's tail, has nothing to do with utility. If there was evolution, the world would be inhabited by monsters.

Darwin's theory and modern science

Darwin's evolutionary theory saw the light when scientists still knew nothing about genes. Darwin observed the pattern of evolution, but did not know about the mechanism. At the beginning of the 20th century, genetics began to develop - chromosomes and genes were discovered, and later the DNA molecule was deciphered. For some scientists, Darwin's theory was refuted - the structure of organisms turned out to be more complex, and the number of chromosomes in humans and monkeys was different.

But supporters of Darwinism say that Darwin never said that man descended from apes - they have a common ancestor. The discovery of genes for Darwinists gave impetus to the development of the synthetic theory of evolution (the inclusion of genetics in Darwin's theory). The physical and behavioral changes that make natural selection possible occur at the level of DNA and genes. Such changes are called mutations. Mutations are the raw material on which evolution operates.

Darwin's theory - interesting facts

The theory of evolution of Charles Darwin is the work of a man who, having abandoned the profession of a doctor because of, went to study theology. A few more interesting facts:

1. The phrase "survival of the fittest" belongs to a contemporary and like-minded Darwin - Herbert Spencer.
2. Charles Darwin not only studied exotic animals, but also dined on them.
3. The Anglican Church officially apologized to the author of the theory of evolution, though 126 years after his death.

Darwin's theory and Christianity

At first glance, the essence of Darwin's theory contradicts the divine universe. At one time, the religious environment was hostile to new ideas. Darwin himself ceased to be a believer in the course of his work. But now many representatives of Christianity have come to the conclusion that there can be real reconciliation - there are those who have religious beliefs and do not deny evolution. Catholic and Anglican churches accepted Darwin's theory, explaining that God, as the creator, gave impetus to the beginning of life, and after that it developed naturally. The Orthodox wing is still unfriendly to Darwinists.

Anaximander. We know about Anaximander's scheme from the historian of the 1st century BC. e. Diodorus Siculus. In his presentation, when the young Earth was illuminated by the Sun, its surface first hardened, and then fermented, rotting appeared, covered with thin shells. All kinds of animal breeds were born in these shells. Man, on the other hand, seems to have arisen from a fish or an animal similar to a fish. Although original, Anaximander's reasoning is purely speculative and unsupported by observation. Another ancient thinker, Xenophanes, paid more attention to observations. So, he identified the fossils that he found in the mountains with the prints of ancient plants and animals: laurel, shells of mollusks, fish, seals. From this, he concluded that the land once sank into the sea, bringing death to land animals and people, and turned into mud, and when it rose, the imprints dried up. Heraclitus, despite the impregnation of his metaphysics with the idea of ​​constant development and eternal becoming, did not create any evolutionary concepts. Although some authors still refer to him as the first evolutionists.

The only author from whom the idea of ​​a gradual change of organisms can be found was Plato. In his dialogue "The State" he put forward the infamous proposal: to improve the breed of people by selecting the best representatives. Without a doubt, this proposal was based on the well-known fact of the selection of producers in animal husbandry. In the modern era, the unwarranted application of these ideas to human society has developed into the doctrine of eugenics, which underlies the racial politics of the Third Reich.

Medieval and Renaissance

With the rise of the level of scientific knowledge after the "ages of darkness" early medieval evolutionary ideas again begin to slip in the writings of scientists, theologians and philosophers. Albert the Great first noted the spontaneous variability of plants, leading to the emergence of new species. The examples once given by Theophrastus he characterized as transmutation one kind to another. The term itself was apparently taken by him from alchemy. In the 16th century, fossil organisms were rediscovered, but only by the end of the 17th century did the idea that this was not a “game of nature”, not stones in the form of bones or shells, but the remains of ancient animals and plants, finally captured the minds. In the work of the year "Noah's Ark, Its Shape and Capacity", Johann Buteo gave calculations that showed that the ark could not contain all kinds of known animals. In the year Bernard Palissy arranged an exhibition of fossils in Paris, where he first compared them with living ones. In the year he published in print the idea that since everything in nature is "in eternal transmutation", many fossil remains of fish and mollusks belong to extinct types.

Evolutionary ideas of modern times

As we can see, the matter did not go beyond the expression of disparate ideas about the variability of species. This same trend continued with the advent of the New Age. So Francis Bacon, the politician and philosopher, suggested that species could change, accumulating the "errors of nature". This thesis again, as in the case of Empedocles, echoes the principle of natural selection, but about general theory no word yet. Oddly enough, but the first book on evolution can be considered a treatise by Matthew Hale (Eng. Matthew Hale) "The Primitive Origination of Mankind Considered and Examined According to the Light of Nature". This may seem strange just because Hale himself was not a naturalist and even a philosopher, he was a lawyer, theologian and financier, and wrote his treatise during a forced vacation on his estate. In it, he wrote that one should not assume that all species were created in their modern form, on the contrary, only archetypes were created, and all the diversity of life developed from them under the influence of numerous circumstances. Hale also anticipates many of the controversies about chance that have arisen since the establishment of Darwinism. In the same treatise, the term "evolution" in the biological sense is mentioned for the first time.

Ideas of limited evolutionism like those of Hale arose constantly, and can be found in the writings of John Ray, Robert Hooke, Gottfried Leibniz, and even in the later work of Carl Linnaeus. They are expressed more clearly by Georges Louis Buffon. Observing the precipitation from the water, he came to the conclusion that 6 thousand years, which were assigned to the history of the Earth by natural theology, are not enough for the formation of sedimentary rocks. The age of the Earth calculated by Buffon was 75 thousand years. Describing the species of animals and plants, Buffon noted that along with useful features, they also have those to which it is impossible to attribute any utility. This again contradicted natural theology, which held that every hair on an animal's body was created for its benefit, or for man's benefit. Buffon came to the conclusion that this contradiction can be eliminated by accepting creation only general plan, which varies in specific embodiments. Having applied Leibniz's "law of continuity" to taxonomy, he spoke out in a year against the existence of discrete species, considering species to be the fruit of the fantasy of taxonomists (this can be seen as the origins of his ongoing polemic with Linnaeus and the antipathy of these scientists to each other).

Lamarck's theory

The move to combine transformist and systematic approaches was made by the naturalist and philosopher Jean Baptiste Lamarck. As a proponent of species change and a deist, he recognized the Creator and believed that the Supreme Creator created only matter and nature; all other inanimate and living objects arose from matter under the influence of nature. Lamarck emphasized that "all living bodies come from one another, and not by successive development from previous embryos." Thus, he opposed the concept of preformism as autogenetic, and his follower Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772-1844) defended the idea of ​​the unity of the body plan of animals of various types. Lamarck's evolutionary ideas are most fully set forth in the Philosophy of Zoology (1809), although Lamarck formulated many of his evolutionary theory in introductory lectures to the course of zoology as early as 1800-1802. Lamarck believed that the steps of evolution do not lie in a straight line, as follows from the "ladder of beings" of the Swiss natural philosopher C. Bonnet, but have many branches and deviations at the level of species and genera. This performance set the stage for future family trees. Lamarck proposed the very term "biology" in its modern sense. However, the zoological works of Lamarck, the creator of the first evolutionary doctrine, contained many factual inaccuracies and speculative constructions, which is especially evident when comparing his works with the works of his contemporary, rival and critic, the creator of comparative anatomy and paleontology, Georges Cuvier (1769-1832). Lamarck believed that the driving factor of evolution could be the "exercise" or "non-exercise" of the organs, depending on the adequate direct influence of the environment. Some of the naivety of Lamarck's and Saint-Hilaire's arguments contributed greatly to the anti-evolutionary reaction to transformism. early XIX in, and caused criticism from the creationist Georges Cuvier and his school, absolutely argued from the factual side of the issue.

catastrophism and transformism

Cuvier's ideal was Linnaeus. Cuvier divided animals into four "branches", each of which is characterized by a common body plan. For these "branches", his follower A. Blainville proposed the concept of type, which fully corresponded to the "branches" of Cuvier. A phylum is not just the highest taxon in the animal kingdom. There are no and cannot be transitional forms between the four distinguished types of animals. All animals belonging to the same type are characterized by a common structural plan. This most important position of Cuvier is extremely significant even today. Although the number of types has significantly exceeded the figure 4, all biologists who speak about the type proceed from the fundamental idea that gives a lot of trouble to the propagandists of gradualism (gradualism) in evolution - the idea of ​​​​the isolation of the plans of the structure of each of the types. Cuvier fully accepted the Linnaean hierarchy of the system and built his system in the form of a branching tree. But it was not a genealogical tree, but a tree of similarity of organisms. As rightly noted by A.A. Borisyak, "having built a system on ... a comprehensive account of the similarities and differences of organisms, he thereby opened the door for the evolutionary doctrine against which he fought." Cuvier's system was apparently the first system of organic nature in which modern forms were considered side by side with fossils. Cuvier is rightfully considered a significant figure in the development of paleontology, biostratigraphy and historical geology as sciences. Theoretical basis to highlight the boundaries between the layers was Cuvier's idea of ​​the catastrophic extinctions of fauna and flora at the boundaries of periods and epochs. He also developed the doctrine of correlations (italics by N.N. Vorontsova), thanks to which he restored the appearance of the skull as a whole, the skeleton as a whole, and, finally, gave a reconstruction of the external appearance of a fossil animal. His contribution to stratigraphy, together with Cuvier, was made by his French colleague paleontologist and geologist A. Brongniard (1770-1847), and, independently of them, by the English surveyor and mining engineer William Smith (1769-1839). The term of the doctrine of the form of organisms - morphology - was introduced into the biological science of Goethe, and the doctrine itself arose in late XVIII century. For the creationists of that time, the concept of the unity of the structural plan meant a search for the similarity, but not the relationship, of organisms. The task of comparative anatomy was seen as an attempt to understand according to what plan the Supreme Being created all the variety of animals that we observe on Earth. Evolutionary classics call this period of development of biology "idealistic morphology". This trend was also developed by an opponent of transformism, the English anatomist and paleontologist Richard Owen (1804-1892). By the way, it was he who proposed to apply the now known analogy or homology to structures that perform similar functions, depending on whether the compared animals belong to the same structural plan, or to different ones (to the same type of animal or to different types).

Evolutionists - contemporaries of Darwin

The English arborist Patrick Matthew (1790-1874) in 1831 published a monograph "Ship timber and tree planting". The phenomenon of uneven growth of trees of the same age, the selective death of some and the survival of others have long been known to foresters. Matthew suggested that selection not only ensures the survival of the fittest trees, but can also lead to changes in species in the course of historical development. Thus, the struggle for existence and natural selection were known to him. At the same time, he believed that the acceleration of the evolutionary process depends on the will of the organism (Lamarckism). The principle of the struggle for existence coexisted with Matthew with the recognition of the existence of catastrophes: after revolutions, a few primitive forms survive; in the absence of competition after the revolution, the evolutionary process proceeds rapidly. Matthew's evolutionary ideas went unnoticed for three decades. But in 1868, after the publication of On the Origin of Species, he published his evolutionary pages. After that, Darwin got acquainted with the works of his predecessor and noted the merits of Matthew in a historical review of the 3rd edition of his work.

Charles Lyell (1797-1875) is a major figure of his time. He brought back to life the concept of actualism (“Basic principles of geology”, 1830-1833), which comes from ancient authors, as well as from such weighty in human history personalities like Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Lomonosov (1711-1765), James Hutton (England, Hutton, 1726-1797) and, finally, Lamarck. Lyell's acceptance of the concept of knowing the past through the study of the present meant the creation of the first integral theory of the evolution of the face of the Earth. The English philosopher and historian of science William Whewell (1794-1866) in 1832 put forward the term uniformitarianism in relation to the assessment of Lyell's theory. Lyell spoke of the invariability of the action of geological factors in time. Uniformism was the complete antithesis of Cuvier's catastrophism. “Lyell's teaching now prevails just as much,” wrote the anthropologist and evolutionist I. Ranke, “as Cuvier's teaching once dominated. At the same time, it is often forgotten that the doctrine of catastrophes could hardly have given a satisfactory schematic explanation of geological facts for so long in the eyes of the best researchers and thinkers, if it had not been based on a certain amount of positive observations. Here, too, the truth lies between the extremes of theory. As modern biologists admit, “Cuvier's catastrophism was a necessary stage in the development of historical geology and paleontology. Without catastrophism, the development of biostratigraphy would hardly have gone so fast.”

The Scotsman Robert Chambers (1802-1871), a book publisher and popularizer of science, published in London Traces of the Natural History of Creation (1844), in which he anonymously propagated the ideas of Lamarck, talked about the duration of the evolutionary process and about evolutionary development from simply organized ancestors to more complex forms . The book was designed for a wide readership and over 10 years it went through 10 editions with a circulation of at least 15 thousand copies (which in itself is impressive for that time). Controversy erupted around the book by an anonymous author. Always very restrained and cautious, Darwin stood aloof from the discussion that unfolded in England, but he carefully watched how criticism of particular inaccuracies turned into a criticism of the very idea of ​​\u200b\u200bvariability of species, so as not to repeat such errors. Chambers, after the publication of Darwin's book, immediately joined the ranks of supporters of the new doctrine.

In the 20th century, they remembered Edward Blyth (1810-1873), an English zoologist and explorer of the Australian fauna. In 1835 and 1837 he published two articles in the English Journal of Natural History in which he said that in conditions of fierce competition and a lack of resources, only the strongest had chances to leave offspring.

Thus, even before the publication of the famous work, the whole course of the development of natural science had already prepared the ground for the perception of the doctrine of the variability of species and selection.

Proceedings of Darwin

A new stage in the development of evolutionary theory came in 1859 as a result of the publication of Charles Darwin's seminal work The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favorable Races in the Struggle for Life. According to Darwin, the main driving force behind evolution is natural selection. Selection, acting on individuals, allows those organisms that are better adapted to life in a given environment to survive and leave offspring. The action of selection leads to the breakup of species into parts - daughter species, which, in turn, diverge over time to genera, families, and all larger taxa.

With his usual honesty, Darwin pointed out those who had directly pushed him to write and publish the doctrine of evolution (apparently, Darwin was not too interested in the history of science, since in the first edition of On the Origin of Species he did not mention his immediate predecessors: Wells, Matthew, Blite). Lyell and, to a lesser extent, Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) had a direct influence on Darwin in the process of creating the work, with his geometric progression of numbers from the demographic work An Essay on the Law of Population (1798). And, it can be said, Darwin was "forced" to publish his work by a young English zoologist and biogeographer Alfred Wallace (1823-1913), sending him a manuscript in which, independently of Darwin, he sets out the ideas of the theory of natural selection. At the same time, Wallace knew that Darwin was working on evolutionary doctrine, for the latter himself wrote to him about this in a letter dated May 1, 1857: “This summer it will be 20 years (!) Since I started my first notebook on the question of how and in what way species and varieties differ from each other. Now I am preparing my work for publication... but I do not intend to publish it earlier than in two years... Indeed, it is impossible (in the framework of a letter) to state my views on the causes and methods of changes in the state of nature; but step by step I came to a clear and distinct idea - true or false, this must be judged by others; because, alas! - the most unshakable confidence of the author of the theory that he is right is in no way a guarantee of its truth! Darwin's sanity can be seen here, as well as the gentlemanly attitude of the two scientists towards each other, which is clearly seen when analyzing the correspondence between them. Darwin, having received the article on June 18, 1858, wanted to submit it to the press, keeping silent about his work, and only at the insistence of his friends wrote a “brief extract” from his work and presented these two works to the judgment of the Linnean Society.

Darwin fully accepted the idea of ​​gradual development from Lyell and, one might say, was a uniformitarian. The question may arise: if everything was known before Darwin, then what is his merit, why did his work cause such a resonance? But Darwin did what his predecessors failed to do. First, he gave his work a very topical title that was "on everyone's lips." The public had a burning interest precisely in "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life." It is difficult to recall another book in the history of world natural science, the title of which would equally clearly reflect its essence. Perhaps Darwin had seen the title pages or the titles of his predecessors' works, but simply had no desire to get acquainted with them. We can only guess how the public would have reacted if Matthew had thought to release his evolutionary views under the title "The possibility of plant species changing over time through survival (selection) of the fittest." But, as we know, "The ship's construction timber ..." did not attract attention.

Secondly, and most importantly, Darwin was able to explain to his contemporaries the reasons for the variability of species on the basis of his observations. He rejected as untenable the notion of "exercise" or "non-exercise" of organs and turned to the facts of breeding new breeds of animals and plant varieties by people - to artificial selection. He showed that the indefinite variability of organisms (mutations) is inherited and can become the beginning of a new breed or variety, if it is useful to man. Transferring these data to wild species, Darwin noted that only those changes that are beneficial to the species for successful competition with others can be preserved in nature, and spoke of the struggle for existence and natural selection, to which he attributed an important, but not the only role of the driving force of evolution. Darwin not only gave theoretical calculations of natural selection, but also showed on the basis of actual material the evolution of species in space, with geographic isolation (finches) and, from the standpoint of strict logic, explained the mechanisms of divergent evolution. He also introduced the public to the fossil forms of giant sloths and armadillos, which could be seen as evolution over time. Darwin also allowed for the possibility of long-term preservation of a certain average species norm in the process of evolution by eliminating any deviant variants (for example, sparrows that survived after a storm had an average wing length), which was later called stasigenesis. Darwin was able to prove to everyone the reality of the variability of species in nature, therefore, thanks to his work, the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe strict constancy of species came to naught. It was pointless for the statics and fixists to continue to persist in their positions.

Development of Darwin's ideas

As a true follower of gradualism, Darwin was concerned that the absence of transitional forms could be the collapse of his theory, and attributed this lack to the incompleteness of the geological record. Darwin was also worried about the idea of ​​"dissolving" a newly acquired trait in a number of generations, with subsequent crossing with ordinary, unaltered individuals. He wrote that this objection, along with breaks in the geological record, is one of the most serious for his theory.

Darwin and his contemporaries did not know that in 1865 the Austro-Czech naturalist abbot Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) discovered the laws of heredity, according to which the hereditary trait does not “dissolve” in a number of generations, but passes (in case of recessiveness) into a heterozygous state and can be propagated in a population environment.

In support of Darwin, scientists such as the American botanist Aza Gray (1810-1888) began to come forward; Alfred Wallace, Thomas Henry Huxley (Huxley; 1825-1895) - in England; the classic of comparative anatomy Karl Gegenbaur (1826-1903), Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919), zoologist Fritz Müller (1821-1897) - in Germany. No less distinguished scientists criticize Darwin's ideas: Darwin's teacher, professor of geology Adam Sedgwick (1785-1873), the famous paleontologist Richard Owen, a major zoologist, paleontologist and geologist Louis Agassiz (1807-1873), German professor Heinrich Georg Bronn (1800-1873). 1862).

An interesting fact is that Darwin's book on German it was Bronn who translated, who did not share his views, but who believes that the new idea has the right to exist (the modern evolutionist and popularizer N.N. Vorontsov pays tribute to Bronn in this as a true scientist). Considering the views of another opponent of Darwin - Agassiz, we note that this scientist spoke about the importance of combining the methods of embryology, anatomy and paleontology to determine the position of a species or other taxon in the classification scheme. In this way, the species gets its place in the natural order of the universe. It was curious to know that Haeckel, an ardent supporter of Darwin, widely promotes the triad postulated by Agassiz, the “method of triple parallelism” already applied to the idea of ​​kinship, and it, warmed up by Haeckel’s personal enthusiasm, captures contemporaries. All zoologists, anatomists, embryologists, and paleontologists who are anything like serious begin to build entire forests of phylogenetic trees. With the light hand of Haeckel, it spreads as the only possible idea of ​​monophyly - origin from one ancestor, which reigned supreme over the minds of scientists in the middle of the 20th century. Modern evolutionists, based on the study of the method of reproduction of the Rhodophycea algae, which is different from all other eukaryotes (fixed and male and female gametes, the absence of a cell center and any flagellar formations), speak of at least two independently formed ancestors of plants. At the same time, they found out that “The emergence of the mitotic apparatus occurred independently at least twice: in the ancestors of the kingdoms of fungi and animals, on the one hand, and in the sub-kingdoms of true algae (except for Rhodophycea) and higher plants, on the other” (exact quote, p. 319) . Thus, the origin of life is recognized not from one proto-organism, but at least from three. In any case, it is noted that already “no other scheme, like the proposed one, can turn out to be monophyletic” (ibid.). The theory of symbiogenesis, which explains the appearance of lichens (combination of algae and fungus) also led scientists to polyphyly (origin from several unrelated organisms) (p. 318). And this is the most important achievement of the theory. In addition, recent research suggests that they are finding more and more examples showing "the prevalence of paraphilia and in the origin of relatively closely related taxa." For example, in the “subfamily of African tree mice Dendromurinae: the genus Deomys is molecularly close to the true Murinae mice, and the genus Steatomys is close in DNA structure to the giant mice of the subfamily Cricetomyinae. At the same time, the morphological similarity of Deomys and Steatomys is undoubted, which indicates the paraphyletic origin of Dendromurinae. Therefore, the phylogenetic classification needs to be revised, based not only on external similarity, but also on the structure of the genetic material (p. 376). The experimental biologist and theorist August Weismann (1834-1914) spoke in a fairly clear form about the cell nucleus as the carrier of heredity. Regardless of Mendel, he came to the most important conclusion about the discreteness of hereditary units. Mendel was so ahead of his time that his work remained virtually unknown for 35 years. Weismann's ideas (sometime after 1863) became the property of a wide range of biologists, a subject for discussion. The most fascinating pages of the origin of the doctrine of chromosomes, the emergence of cytogenetics, the creation of T.G. Morgan of the chromosome theory of heredity in 1912-1916. – all this was strongly stimulated by August Weismann. Exploring embryonic development sea ​​urchins, he proposed to distinguish between two forms of cell division - equatorial and reduction, i.e. approached the discovery of meiosis - the most important stage of combinative variability and the sexual process. But Weisman could not avoid some speculation in his ideas about the mechanism of heredity transmission. He thought that the entire set of discrete factors - "determinants" - have only cells of the so-called. "germ line". Some determinants get into some of the cells of the "soma" (body), others - others. Differences in the sets of determinants explain the specialization of soma cells. So, we see that, having correctly predicted the existence of meiosis, Weismann was mistaken in predicting the fate of the distribution of genes. He also extended the principle of selection to competition between cells, and since cells are carriers of certain determinants, he spoke of their struggle with each other. The most modern concepts of "selfish DNA", "selfish gene", developed at the turn of the 70s and 80s. 20th century in many respects have something in common with the Weismann competition of determinants. Weisman emphasized that the "germ plasm" is isolated from the cells of the soma of the whole organism, and therefore spoke of the impossibility of inheriting the characteristics acquired by the body (soma) under the influence of the environment. But many Darwinists accepted this idea of ​​Lamarck. Weismann's harsh criticism of this concept led to him personally and his theory, and then to the study of chromosomes in general. negative attitude on the part of orthodox Darwinists (those who recognized selection as the only factor in evolution).

The rediscovery of Mendel's laws occurred in 1900 in three different countries: Holland (Hugo de Vries 1848-1935), Germany (Karl Erich Korrens 1864-1933) and Austria (Erich von Tschermak 1871-1962), who simultaneously discovered the forgotten work of Mendel. In 1902, Walter Sutton (Seton, 1876-1916) gave a cytological justification for Mendelism: diploid and haploid sets, homologous chromosomes, the conjugation process during meiosis, the prediction of the linkage of genes located on the same chromosome, the concept of dominance and recessiveness, as well as allelic genes - all this was demonstrated on cytological preparations, based on the exact calculations of Mendeleev's algebra, and very different from hypothetical family trees, from the style of naturalistic Darwinism of the 19th century. The mutational theory of de Vries (1901-1903) was not accepted not only by the conservatism of orthodox Darwinists, but also by the fact that on other plant species, researchers were unable to obtain the wide range of variability achieved by him on Oenothera lamarkiana (it is now known that evening primrose is a polymorphic species , which has chromosomal translocations, some of which are heterozygous, while homozygotes are lethal.De Vries chose a very successful object for obtaining mutations and at the same time not entirely successful, since in his case it was necessary to extend the results achieved to other plant species). De Vries and his Russian predecessor, the botanist Sergei Ivanovich Korzhinsky (1861-1900), who wrote in 1899 (Petersburg) about sudden spasmodic "heterogeneous" deviations, thought that the possibility of the manifestation of macromutations rejected Darwin's theory. At the dawn of the formation of genetics, many concepts were expressed, according to which evolution did not depend on the external environment. The Dutch botanist Jan Paulus Lotsi (1867-1931), who wrote the book Evolution by Hybridization, also came under criticism from the Darwinists, where he rightly drew attention to the role of hybridization in plant speciation.

If in the middle of the 18th century the contradiction between transformism (continuous change) and the discreteness of taxonomic units of taxonomy seemed insurmountable, then in the 19th century it was thought that gradualistic trees built on the basis of kinship came into conflict with the discreteness of hereditary material. Evolution by visually distinguishable large mutations could not be accepted by the gradualism of the Darwinists.

Trust in mutations and their role in shaping the variability of a species was restored by Thomas Gent Morgan (1886-1945) when this American embryologist and zoologist turned to genetic research in 1910 and eventually settled on the famous Drosophila. Probably, one should not be surprised that 20-30 years after the events described, it was population geneticists who came to evolution not through macromutations (which began to be recognized as unlikely), but through a steady and gradual change in the frequencies of allelic genes in populations. Since macroevolution by that time seemed to be an indisputable continuation of the studied phenomena of microevolution, gradualness began to seem an inseparable feature of the evolutionary process. There was a return to Leibniz's "law of continuity" at a new level, and in the first half of the 20th century a synthesis of evolution and genetics could take place. Once again, once-opposite concepts have united. (names, conclusions of evolutionists and chronology of events are taken from Nikolay Nikolaevich Vorontsov, "Development of evolutionary ideas in biology, 1999)

Recall that in the light of the latest biological ideas put forward from the positions of materialism, now again there is a distance from the law of continuity, now not genetics, but the evolutionists themselves. The famous S.J. Gould raised the issue of punctualism (punctuated equilibrium), as opposed to generally accepted gradualism, in order to explain the reasons for the already obvious picture of the absence of transitional forms among fossils, i.e. the impossibility of building a truly continuous line of kinship from the origins to the present. There is always a break in the geological record.

Modern theories of biological evolution

Synthetic theory of evolution

The synthetic theory in its current form was formed as a result of rethinking a number of provisions of classical Darwinism from the standpoint of genetics at the beginning of the 20th century. After the rediscovery of Mendel's laws (in 1901), the evidence of the discrete nature of heredity, and especially after the creation of theoretical population genetics by the works of R. Fisher (-), J. B. S. Haldane, Jr. (), S. Wright ( ; ), the teaching Darwin acquired a solid genetic foundation.

Neutral theory of molecular evolution

The theory of neutral evolution does not dispute the decisive role of natural selection in the development of life on Earth. The discussion is about the proportion of mutations that have an adaptive value. Most biologists accept a number of results of the theory of neutral evolution, although they do not share some of the strong statements originally made by M. Kimura.

Epigenetic theory of evolution

The main provisions of the epigenetic theory of evolution were formulated in the th year by M. A. Shishkin on the basis of the ideas of I. I. Schmalhausen and K. H. Waddington. As the main substrate of natural selection, the theory considers a holistic phenotype, and selection not only fixes beneficial changes, but also takes part in their creation. The fundamental influence on heredity is exerted not by the genome, but by the epigenetic system (ES) - a set of factors affecting ontogenesis. Passed down from ancestors to descendants general organization ES, which forms the organism in the course of its individual development, and selection leads to the stabilization of a number of successive ontogenies, eliminating deviations from the norm (morphoses) and forming a stable development trajectory (creod). Evolution, according to ETE, consists in the transformation of one creod into another under the perturbing influence of the environment. In response to the perturbation, the ES destabilizes, as a result of which the development of organisms along deviating paths of development becomes possible, and multiple morphoses arise. Some of these morphoses receive a selective advantage, and over the course of subsequent generations, their ES develops a new stable development trajectory, a new creod is formed.

Ecosystem theory of evolution

This term is understood as a system of ideas and approaches to the study of evolution, focusing on the features and patterns of evolution of ecosystems at various levels - biocenoses, biomes and the biosphere as a whole, and not taxa (species, families, classes, etc.). The provisions of the ecosystem theory of evolution are based on two postulates:

• Naturalness and discreteness of ecosystems. An ecosystem is a real-life (and not isolated for the convenience of the researcher) object, which is a system of interacting biological and non-biological (eg soil, water) objects territorially and functionally delimited from other similar objects. The boundaries between ecosystems are clear enough to speak about the independent evolution of neighboring objects.
• The decisive role of ecosystem interactions in determining the rate and direction of population evolution. Evolution is seen as a process of creating and filling ecological niches or licenses.

The ecosystem theory of evolution operates with such terms as coherent and incoherent evolution, ecosystem crises of various levels. The modern ecosystem theory of evolution is based mainly on the works of Soviet and Russian evolutionists: V. A. Krasilov, S. M. Razumovsky, A. G. Ponomarenko, V. V. Zherikhin and others.

Evolutionary doctrine and religion

Although many unclear questions about the mechanisms of evolution remain in modern biology, the vast majority of biologists do not doubt the existence of biological evolution as a phenomenon. However, some believers of a number of religions find some provisions of evolutionary biology contrary to their religious beliefs, in particular, the dogma of the creation of the world by God. In this regard, in a part of society, almost from the moment of the birth of evolutionary biology, there has been a certain opposition to this teaching from the religious side (see creationism), which at some times and in some countries has reached criminal sanctions for teaching evolutionary doctrine (which caused, for example, the scandalous well-known "monkey process" in the USA in g.).

It should be noted that the accusations of atheism and the denial of religion, cited by some opponents of evolutionary doctrine, are based to a certain extent on a misunderstanding of the nature of scientific knowledge: in science, no theory, including the theory of biological evolution, can either confirm or deny the existence of such otherworldly subjects, like God (if only because God, when creating living nature, could use evolution, as the theological doctrine of "theistic evolution" claims).

On the other hand, the theory of evolution, being a scientific theory, considers the biological world as part of the material world and relies on its natural and self-sufficient, that is, its natural origin, which is therefore alien to any otherworldly or divine intervention; alien for the reason that the growth of scientific knowledge, penetrating into the previously incomprehensible and explainable only by the activity of otherworldly forces, somehow beats the soil from religion (when explaining the essence of the phenomenon, the need for a religious explanation disappears, because there is a convincing natural explanation). In this plan evolutionary doctrine can be aimed at denying the existence of extra-natural forces, or rather their interference in the process of development of the living world, which one way or another implies religious systems.

Efforts to oppose evolutionary biology to religious anthropology are also mistaken. From the point of view of the methodology of science, the popular thesis "man descended from apes" is only an oversimplification (see reductionism) of one of the conclusions of evolutionary biology (about the place of man as a biological species on the phylogenetic tree of living nature), if only because the concept of “man” is ambiguous: man as a subject of physical anthropology is by no means identical to man as a subject of philosophical anthropology, and it is incorrect to reduce philosophical anthropology to physical one.

Many believers of different religions do not find evolutionary teachings contrary to their faith. The theory of biological evolution (along with many other sciences - from astrophysics to geology and radiochemistry) contradicts only the literal reading of the sacred texts that tell about the creation of the world, and for some believers this is the reason for rejecting almost all the conclusions of the natural sciences that study the past of the material world (literalist creationism ).

Among believers who profess the doctrine of literal creationism, there are a number of scientists who are trying to find scientific evidence for their doctrine (the so-called "scientific creationism"). However, the scientific community disputes the validity of this evidence.

Literature

• Berg L. S. Nomogenesis, or Evolution based on regularities. - Petersburg: State Publishing House, 1922. - 306 p.
• Kordyum V. A. Evolution and the biosphere. - K.: Naukova Dumka, 1982. - 264 p.
• Krasilov V. A. Unsolved problems of the theory of evolution. - Vladivostok: DVNTs AN SSSR, 1986. - S. 140.
• Lima de Faria A. Evolution without selection: Autoevolution of form and function: Per. from English. - M.: Mir, 1991. - S. 455.
• Nazarov V.I. Evolution not according to Darwin: Changing the evolutionary model. Tutorial. Ed. 2nd, corrected .. - M .: Publishing house LKI, 2007. - 520 p.
• Tchaikovsky Yu.V. The science of life development. Experience of the theory of evolution. - M.: Association of scientific publications KMK, 2006. - 712 p.
• Golubovsky M. D. Non-canonical legacy changes // Nature. - 2001. - No. 8. - S. 3–9.
• Meyen S.V. The path to a new synthesis, or where do homologous series lead? // Knowledge is power. - 1972. - № 8.

The idea of ​​gradual and continuous change in all kinds of plants and animals was expressed by many scientists long before Darwin. Therefore, the very concept evolution - the process of long-term, gradual, slow changes, which ultimately lead to fundamental, qualitative changes - the emergence of new organisms, structures, forms and types, penetrated into science at the end of the 18th century.

However, it was Darwin who put forward a completely new hypothesis regarding wildlife, generalizing individual evolutionary ideas into one, the so-called theory of evolution, which is widely used in the world.

During his round-the-world trip, Charles Darwin collected a wealth of material that testified to the variability of plant and animal species. A particularly striking find was a huge skeleton of a fossil sloth found in South America. Comparison with modern, small-sized sloths prompted Darwin to think about the evolution of species.

The richest empirical material accumulated by that time in geography, archeology, paleontology, physiology, taxonomy, etc., allowed Darwin to draw a conclusion about the long evolution of living nature. Darwin laid out his concept in his work "The Origin of Species by Natural Selection» (1859). Ch. Darwin's book was a phenomenal success, its first edition (1250 copies) was sold on the first day. The book was about explaining the emergence of living beings without appealing to the idea of ​​God.

At the same time, it should be noted that, despite the enormous popularity among the reading public, the idea of ​​​​the gradual appearance of new species in wildlife for the scientific community of that time turned out to be so unusual that it was not immediately accepted.

Darwin suggested that there is competition in animal populations, due to which only those individuals survive that have properties that are advantageous under given specific conditions, allowing them to leave offspring. Darwin's evolutionary theory is based on three principles: a) heredity and variability; b) struggle for existence; c) natural selection. Variability is an essential property of all living things. Despite the similarity of living organisms of the same species, it is impossible to find two completely identical individuals within a population. This variability of traits and properties creates an advantage for some organisms over others.

Under normal conditions, the difference in properties remains imperceptible and does not have a significant effect on the development of organisms, however, when conditions change, especially in an unfavorable direction, even the slightest difference can give some organisms a significant advantage over others. Only individuals with properties that meet the conditions are able to survive and leave offspring. Darwin distinguishes between indefinite and definite variability.

Certain variability, or adaptive modification,- the ability of individuals of the same species to respond in the same way to changes environment. Such group changes are not inherited, therefore they cannot supply material for evolution.

Uncertain variability, or mutation, - individual changes in the body, inherited. Mutations are not directly related to changes in environmental conditions, but it is precisely the indeterminate variability that plays the most important role in the evolutionary process. Accidentally appeared positive changes are inherited. As a result, only a small part of the offspring with useful hereditary properties survives and reaches maturity.

Between living beings, according to Darwin, a struggle for existence unfolds. Concretizing this concept, Darwin pointed out that more individuals are born within a species than survive to adulthood.

Natural selection- the leading factor in evolution, explaining the mechanism for the formation of new species. It is this selection that is the driving force behind evolution. The selection mechanism leads to the selective destruction of those individuals that are less adapted to environmental conditions.

Criticism of the concept of Darwinian evolution

Neo-Lamarckism was the first major anti-Darwinian doctrine to appear in late XIX in. Neo-Lamarckism was based on the recognition of adequate variability arising under the direct or indirect influence of environmental factors that force organisms to adapt directly to them. Neo-Lamarckists also talked about the impossibility of inheriting traits acquired in this way, denied the creative role of natural selection. The basis of this doctrine was the old ideas of Lamarck.

Of other anti-Darwinian teachings, we note theory of nomogenesisL. C. Berg, created in 1922. This theory is based on the idea that evolution is a programmed process of implementing internal laws inherent in all living things. He believed that organisms are clothed with an internal force of an unknown nature, acting purposefully, regardless of the external environment, in the direction of complicating the organization. As proof of this, Berg cited a wealth of data on the convergent and parallel evolution of different groups of plants and animals.

C. Darwin believed that natural selection ensures progress in the development of living organisms. In addition, he emphasized that the elementary unit of evolution is not an individual, but a species. However, later it was found that the elementary unit of evolution is not kind, a population.

The weak link in the evolutionary theory of Charles Darwin was the lack of an accurate and convincing mechanism of heredity. Thus, the evolutionary hypothesis did not explain how beneficial hereditary changes are accumulated and preserved as a result of further crossing of living organisms. Contrary to the prevailing opinion that when crossing organisms with useful properties and organisms that do not have these properties, useful traits should be averaged, their dissolution in a series of generations. The evolutionary concept assumed that these signs accumulated.

Charles Darwin was aware of the weakness of his concept, but failed to satisfactorily explain the mechanism of inheritance.

The answer to this question was given by the theory of the Austrian biologist and geneticist Mendel, who substantiated the discrete nature of heredity.

Created in the XX century. synthetic theory of evolution(STE) completed the unification of evolutionary theory with genetics. STE is a synthesis of Darwin's basic evolutionary ideas, and above all natural selection, with new research results in the field of heredity and variability. An important component of STE are the concepts of micro- and macroevolution. Under microevolution understand the totality of evolutionary processes occurring in populations, leading to changes in the gene pool of these populations and the formation of new species.

It is believed that microevolution proceeds on the basis of mutational variability under the control of natural selection. Mutations are the only source of qualitatively new traits, and natural selection is the only creative factor in microevolution.

The nature of microevolutionary processes is influenced by fluctuations in the number of populations ("waves of life"), the exchange of genetic information between them, their isolation and gene drift. Microevolution leads either to a change in the entire gene pool species as a whole, or to their isolation from the parent view as new forms.

Macroevolution is understood as evolutionary transformations leading to the formation of taxa of a higher rank than the species (genera, orders, classes).

It is believed that macroevolution does not have specific mechanisms and is carried out only through the processes of microevolution, being their integrated expression. Accumulating, microevolutionary processes are expressed externally in macroevolutionary phenomena, i.e. macroevolution is a generalized picture of evolutionary change. Therefore, at the level of macroevolution, general trends, directions and patterns of evolution of living nature are found that cannot be observed at the level of microevolution.

Some of the events that are usually cited as evidence for the evolutionary hypothesis can be reproduced in the laboratory, but this does not mean that they really took place in the past. They only testify to the fact that these events could happen.

Many objections to the evolutionary hypothesis are still unanswered.

In connection with the criticism of Darwin's hypothesis of natural selection, it is worth noting the following. At present, which has marked a civilizational crisis - a crisis of the basic worldview attitudes of mankind - it is becoming increasingly clear that Darwinism is just a particular model of competitive interaction, unjustifiably claiming to be universal.

Let's take a closer look at the central link of Darwinism - the property of adaptability or adaptability of the evolutionary process. What does it mean - a more adapted individual or individuals? Strictly speaking, there is no answer to this question in Darwinism, and if there is an indirect answer, then it is erroneous.

The indirect answer is as follows: the most adapted individual will be the one that wins the competition and survives. The latter inevitably leads to the notion of a gangster person and an aggressor species. Populations and an ecosystem with such an aggressor species would be clearly unstable: they could not exist for a long time. This contradicts the facts and the notions established in biology that sustainable ecosystems are generally in equilibrium, and replacement processes do not occur in them.

The way of stable existence of populations, communities and ecosystems is cooperation and mutual complementation 115].

Competition, on the other hand, is of a particular nature: it is fully involved in a non-equilibrium population moving towards equilibrium, and plays the role of a kind of catalyst, speeding up the movement of the ecosystem towards equilibrium. However, a direct relationship to evolution, i.e. progress, this kind of competition does not. Example: the introduction of a species into a new area for it - the importation of a rabbit into Australia. There was competition for writing, but no new kind, much less progressive, emerged. Another example: to the island of Porto Sonto in Atlantic Ocean a brood of rabbits was also released. Unlike their European counterparts, these rabbits have become smaller and of a different color. When crossed with a European species, they did not produce fertile offspring - a new species of rabbits arose. It is clear that competition was also involved in the formation of an equilibrium population. However, speciation did not occur at its expense, but due to new environmental conditions. At the same time, there is no evidence that the emerging species of rabbits is more progressive than the European one.

Thus, the purpose of competition is quite different from that in Darwin's hypothesis of natural selection. Competition eliminates abnormal, "decaying" individuals (with disorders in the genetic apparatus). Thus, competitive interaction eliminates regression. But the mechanism of progress is not competitive interaction, but the discovery and development of a new resource: as evolution progresses, the smarter one gets the advantage.

The Darwinian concept is built as a negative process in which not the strongest survive, but the weakest die.

Darwinism denies tendencies - regularities that are quite obvious (for example, Georgians and Ukrainians sing well), arguing that all essential properties are determined by their usefulness for survival.

Darwinism is generally pointless, since natural selection simply does not exist in nature.

As is well known, Darwin did not give examples of natural selection in nature, confining himself to analogy with artificial selection. But this analogy fails. Artificial selection requires the forced breeding of desired individuals while completely eliminating the reproduction of all others. There is no such selection procedure in nature. This was recognized by Darwin himself.

Natural selection is not selective crossing, but selective breeding. In nature, only a few examples have been found of how, due to selective reproduction, the frequency of carriers of a certain trait changes, but that's all. Not a single example where something new appeared as a result of this procedure could be found (with the exception of that boring case when turning on or off is useful already existing gene).

The only justification for Darwinism is still the analogy with artificial selection, but it has not yet led to the emergence of at least one new genus, not to mention the family, detachment and above. Thus, Darwinism is not a description of evolution, but a way of interpreting a small part of it (changes within a species) with the help of a hypothetical cause called natural selection.

Evolution is not according to Darwin

The direction of evolution is determined by whose set of genes is brought into the next generation, not by whose set of genes disappeared in the previous one.

The "modern" theory of evolution - the synthetic theory of evolution (STE), based on the synthesis of Darwin's theory of natural selection with Mendel's genetics, proves that mutations are the cause of variability - abrupt changes in the hereditary structure of an organism that occur by chance, also doesn't solve the problem.

AT evolution is based not Darwinian selection, not mutations (as in STE), but individual intraspecific variability, which exists permanently in all populations. It is individual variability that provides the basis for the preservation of certain functions in a population. It's as if aliens have arrived and started hitting us with a huge colander, into the holes of which the most quick-witted (smart) people would slip. Then those who are less intelligent would simply disappear.

Horizontal gene transfer has been known for many years; acquisition hereditary information apart from the breeding process. It turned out that in the chromosomes and cytoplasm of the cell there are a number of biochemical compounds that are in a chaotic state and are capable of interacting with the nucleic acid structures of another organism. These biochemical compounds were called plasmids. Plasmids are capable of being incorporated into the recipient's cell and activated under the influence of certain external factors. The transition from a latent state to an active state means the combination of the donor's genetic material with the recipient's genetic material. If the resulting design is efficient, then protein synthesis begins.

Based on this technology, insulin was synthesized - a protein that allows you to fight diabetes.

In unicellular microorganisms, horizontal gene transfer is decisive in evolution.

Migrating genetic elements show significant similarities with viruses. Discovery of the phenomenon of gene transduction, i.e. transfer of genetic information into plant and animal cells with the help of viruses that include part of the genes of the original host cell, suggests that viruses and biochemical formations similar to them occupy a special place in evolution.

Some scientists are of the opinion that migrating biochemical compounds can cause even more serious changes in cell genomes than mutations. If this assumption turns out to be correct, then the current ideas about the mechanisms of evolution will have to be substantially revised.

Hypotheses are now being put forward about the significant role of viruses in mixing the genetic information of different populations, the emergence of jumps in the evolutionary process In a word, we are talking about the most important role of viruses in the evolutionary process.

Viruses are one of the most dangerous mutagens. Viruses are the smallest of living beings. They do not have a cellular structure, they are not capable of synthesizing protein themselves, therefore they receive the substances necessary for their life by penetrating into a living cell and using other people's organic matter and energy.

In humans, as in plants and animals, viruses cause many diseases. Although mutations are the main suppliers of evolutionary material, however, they refer to random changes that obey probabilistic laws. Therefore, they cannot serve as a determining factor in the evolutionary process.

Nevertheless, the idea of ​​the leading role of mutations in the evolutionary process formed the basis the theory of neutral mutations, created in the 1970s-1980s by Japanese scientists M. Kimura and T. Ota. According to this theory, changes in the functions of the protein-synthesizing apparatus are the result of random mutations that are neutral in their evolutionary consequences. Their true role is to provoke genetic drift - a change in the purity of genes in a population under the influence of completely random factors.

On this basis, the neutralist concept of non-Darwinian evolution was proclaimed, the essence of which lies in the idea that natural selection does not work at the molecular genetic level. And although these ideas are not generally accepted among biologists, it is obvious that the immediate arena of natural selection is the phenotype, i.e. living organism, ontogenetic level of life organization.

Recently, another concept of non-Darwinian evolution has emerged - punctuality. Its supporters believe that the process of evolution goes through rare and fast jumps, and in 99% of its time the species is in a stable state - stasis. In extreme cases, a jump to a new species can occur in a population of only a dozen individuals within one or several generations.

This hypothesis is based on a broad genetic base laid down by a number of fundamental discoveries in molecular genetics and biochemistry. Punctualism rejected the genetic-population model of speciation, Darwin's idea of ​​varieties and subspecies as emerging species, and focused on the molecular genetics of the individual as the bearer of all the properties of the species.

The value of this concept lies in the idea of ​​the disunity of micro- and macroevolution (as opposed to STE) and the independence of the factors controlled by them.

Thus, Darwin's concept is not the only one trying to explain the evolutionary process. However, they made an icon out of Darwin, and a religion out of Darwinism (the word "selection" is used colloquially, like bread and water). If religion can only be supplanted by another religion, then what kind of religion can replace Darwinism today with the benefit of people? Classical religions cannot do this, because they profess creationism, and it is contrary to science and therefore repels those who should be relied on.

To supplant Darwinism, for the common good, the religion of reverence for nature as a whole can(where man is only a part of nature, a native of it). This is the only way to replace the ideology of "fighting with nature", which the dominance of Darwinism asserts on planet Earth.

The sprouts of reverence for nature as a whole are already visible in the emerging environmental movements.

The temporary establishment in the world of the Darwinian worldview, supplemented by economic market mechanisms, was one of the main worldview causes of the modern civilizational crisis.

Attention should also be paid to the review of Darwinism made back in the 19th century. the largest pathologist R. von Virchow, at the Congress of Naturalists in Munich. He demanded a ban on the study and dissemination of the ideas of Darwinism, since its dissemination could lead to a repetition of the Paris Commune.

Perhaps in the future, STE and non-Darwinian concepts of evolution, complementing each other, will unite into a new unified concept. theory of life and development of living nature.