Evolution part 2, Darwin's postulates (theory of evolution)

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Other naturalists of this time speculated on evolutionary change of species over time according to natural laws. Maupertuis wrote in 1751 of natural modifications occurring during reproduction and accumulating over many generations to produce new species.[21] Buffon suggested that species could degenerate into different organisms, and Erasmus Darwin proposed that all warm-blooded animals could have descended from a single micro-organism (or "filament").[22] The first full-fledged evolutionary scheme was Lamarck's "transmutation" theory of 1809[23] which envisaged spontaneous generation continually producing simple forms of life developed greater complexity in parallel lineages with an inherent progressive tendency, and that on a local level these lineages adapted to the environment by inheriting changes caused by use or disuse in parents.[24][25] (The latter process was later called Lamarckism.)[24][26][27][28] These ideas were condemned by established naturalists as speculation lacking empirical support. In particular Georges Cuvier insisted that species were unrelated and fixed, their similarities reflecting divine design for functional needs. In the meantime, Ray's ideas of benevolent design had been developed by William Paley into a natural theology which proposed complex adaptations as evidence of divine design, and was admired by Charles Darwin.[29][30][31]

The critical break from the concept of fixed species in biology began with the theory of evolution by natural selection, which was formulated by Charles Darwin. Partly influenced by An Essay on the Principle of Population by Thomas Robert Malthus, Darwin noted that population growth would lead to a "struggle for existence" where favorable variations could prevail as others perished. Each generation, many offspring fail to survive to an age of reproduction because of limited resources. This could explain the diversity of animals and plants from a common ancestry through the working of natural laws working the same for all types of thing.[32][33][34][35] Darwin was developing his theory of "natural selection" from 1838 onwards until Alfred Russel Wallace sent him a similar theory in 1858. Both men presented their separate papers to the Linnean Society of London.[36] At the end of 1859, Darwin's publication of On the Origin of Species explained natural selection in detail and in a way that led to an increasingly wide acceptance of Darwinian evolution. Thomas Henry Huxley applied Darwin's ideas to humans, using paleontology and comparative anatomy to provide strong evidence that humans and apes shared a common ancestry. Some were disturbed by this since it implied that humans did not have a special place in the universe.[37]

Precise mechanisms of reproductive heritability and the origin of new traits remained a mystery. Towards this end, Darwin developed his provisional theory of pangenesis.[38] In 1865 Gregor Mendel reported that traits were inherited in a predictable manner through the independent assortment and segregation of elements (later known as genes). Mendel's laws of inheritance eventually supplanted most of Darwin's pangenesis theory.[39] August Weismann made the important distinction between germ cells (sperm and eggs) and somatic cells of the body, demonstrating that heredity passes through the germ line only. Hugo de Vries connected Darwin's pangenesis theory to Weismann's germ/soma cell distinction and proposed that Darwin's pangenes were concentrated in the cell nucleus and when expressed they could move into the cytoplasm to change the cells structure. De Vries was also one of the researchers who made Mendel's work well-known, believing that Mendelian traits corresponded to the transfer of heritable variations along the germline.[40] To explain how new variants originate, De Vries developed a mutation theory that led to a temporary rift between those who accepted Darwinian evolution and biometricians who allied with de Vries.[25][41][42] At the turn of the 20th century, pioneers in the field of population genetics, such as J.B.S. Haldane, Sewall Wright, and Ronald Fisher, set the foundations of evolution onto a robust statistical philosophy. The false contradiction between Darwin's theory, genetic mutations, and Mendelian inheritance was thus reconciled.[43]

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