Charles Darwin created the theory. Darwin's theory of evolution

A. RUBTSOV, Ph.D. biol. Sci.

In 2009, the whole world celebrates the 200th anniversary of the founder of the theory of evolution, Charles Darwin, and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his work “On the Origin of Species.” Natural science museums around the world have taken on the difficult task of popularizing the teachings of the English scientist, towards whom public attitudes are still ambiguous to this day. It is the lack of information that is understandable and accessible to the general public that is one of the reasons for the difficult fate of the theory of evolution, which has become the basis of modern biology. In July 2008, an online interview took place on our portal, in which the head of the research department of evolution of the State Darwin Museum, candidate of biological sciences Alexander Sergeevich Rubtsov, answered questions from site visitors regarding the theory of evolution. We present the magazine version of this interview to our readers.

Science and life // Illustrations

According to modern criteria, the common and white-capped buntings should be considered one species: they do not differ in mitochondrial DNA, and hybrids can often be found in the area where they live together.

The Arabian talker is the most common inhabitant of the arid subtropics of the Middle East. In addition to the breeding pair, a family group of talkers can include up to 15 “helpers.”

The house in Doane where Charles Darwin lived for 40 years (1842 to 1882).

“Fur Labels” in the “Zoogeography” hall of the State Darwin Museum.

What's it like current state theory of evolution, what are its problem points?

In a nutshell, evolutionary theory constitutes the theoretical basis of all modern biology. As one of the founders of the modern synthetic theory of evolution, Theodosius Grigorievich Dobzhansky, rightly noted, “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” Take at least a school textbook - all comparative anatomy is described there from the standpoint that amphibians descended from fish, reptiles from amphibians, etc. Actually, before Darwin’s theory, biology did not exist as an independent science: in order to study biology, one had to receive either a medical or theological education.

As in any science, the theory of evolution has many more questions than answers. The synthetic theory of evolution, combining the achievements of genetics and classical Darwinism, was created 80 years ago. It is now obvious to all evolutionary biologists that it is outdated, and many facts cannot be explained. Everyone is talking about the need for a new synthesis that would combine the achievements of paleontology, embryology, zoopsychology and other branches of biology that are not fully taken into account by modern evolutionary theory. But even if the third synthesis occurs (historians of biology call Darwin’s theory the first synthesis), then, obviously, it will not solve all the problems and will raise new questions - this is the specificity of science. In order not to be unfounded, I will outline several problems that are relevant to modern evolutionary theory. I want to say right away that this is just an illustration and not a critical review.

One of the problematic questions is: how do new species form? Although Darwin called his work “The Origin of Species,” he, as a scrupulously consistent scientist, honestly admitted that the question of how two new ones are formed from one ancestral species is far from being finally resolved. These words are still relevant today. Obviously, the main property of a species that allows it to exist as an integral autonomous unit in an ecosystem is its non-crossbreeding with other species, or, in scientific terms, reproductive isolation. It is ensured by a system of isolating mechanisms, which includes: differences between the habitats of closely related species, mating coloration and dissimilarity of mating rituals, non-viability and sterility of interspecific hybrids. The formation of isolating mechanisms is the main stage of the process of speciation. On initial stages speciation, the range of the ancestral species due to any external reasons is divided into several populations, separated from one another by geographical barriers for many millennia. In isolated populations, morphological and behavioral differences accumulate, which can subsequently act as isolating mechanisms. After some time, isolated populations may come into secondary geographic contact. If hybridization occurs in the contact zone, then the hybrids should be less viable than the parental forms, due to the genetic differences accumulated between them (the parental forms). Natural selection will promote the development of isolating mechanisms and a decrease in the level of hybridization. After some time, hybridization will stop and the speciation process will be completed. This is what the theory predicts. In practice, hybrids turn out to be quite viable and fertile, and hybrid populations prosper for a long time. And this is between such forms that, according to the level of genetic differences determined using modern methods DNA diagnostics are, of course, independent types. As molecular genetic studies have shown, hybridization can lead to secondary genetic similarity of hybridizing species even outside the contact zone, practically without affecting their appearance - phenotype. And what about the theory? And with the criteria of the species?

Darwin wrote his main book, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, as summary more general work, which was never written by him. And he considered natural selection to be the main, but perhaps not the only factor in evolution. Perhaps it is worth returning to this remark of Darwin and thinking about what other possible factors of evolution besides selection. As such we can call cooperation. Indeed, all living organisms strive for a society of their own kind, at least temporarily - during reproduction and breeding. Cooperation often leads to stable social groupings with a hierarchical structure. In the course of evolution, the integration of a social group can go so far that its members can no longer exist separately from the group, and the entire society will have to be considered as a single superorganism. As paradoxical as it sounds, without cooperation, life on Earth would not have developed beyond bacteria. For any specialist with a higher biological education, it is obvious that our bodies are nothing more than highly integrated colonies of single-celled organisms. But the question is legitimate: is cooperation an independent evolutionary factor or one of many manifestations of selection? The answer is not obvious. For example, in passerine birds one can often see the following phenomenon: one-year-old birds, which do not have the opportunity to occupy their own nesting site, often help their parents feed their next offspring. This behavior could indeed have become entrenched through natural selection: by feeding younger brothers and sisters, birds increase the chance of survival of their own genes. However, in desert areas, where there are very few places suitable for nesting, the nesting pair has more and more helpers from year to year, and they risk spending their entire lives as auxiliary workers. Not wanting to put up with this state of affairs, the birds begin to sort things out at the nest, which usually leads to the death of the clutch or chicks. There is a selection against cooperation, but for some reason the social groupings of “helpers” are still preserved. Probably, cooperation is an independent evolutionary factor, acting on a par with natural selection. Darwin explained how natural selection arises and works. But where cooperation comes from is an open question.

In general, unsolved problems of evolutionary theory are an inexhaustible topic. These are questions of the direction of evolution, the relationship between gene and trait, etc.

How have scientists' views changed since Charles Darwin?

In short, ideas about selection have been supplemented by genetic data: genes are discrete units of heredity and can be combined with each other in various combinations from generation to generation; hereditary variability, which provides material for selection, is formed as a result of mutations; in addition to directional factors of evolution (natural selection), there are also stochastic ones (genetic drift); ideas about the nature of the action of selection have changed - it leads to a change in the ratio of gene frequencies in the population from generation to generation. Concepts about species and speciation have changed radically. In methodological terms, the naturalistic approach was supplemented by an experimental one, the theory became more formalized, and a rather complex mathematical apparatus appeared.

Is the theory of evolution the only logical explanation for the development of life?

Evolution is the development of life. Recognition that evolution occurs is the only logical explanation for the observed patterns of modern biological diversity, which is also supported by the fossil record and embryological data. The theory of evolution is an explanation of the mechanisms of evolution; there can be many theories of evolution. At the moment, the theory of natural selection (or rather, the synthetic theory of evolution as the “successor” of Darwin’s) is the only theory that meets the criteria of scientificity - verifiability and falsifiability: on the basis of this theory it is possible to build hypotheses that are tested empirically, and there is a possibility of their experimental refutation.

Has at least one new species been created through the process of artificial selection?

No, it was not created, because there was no such task. The main criterion for a species is its non-crossing with related species in nature. When breeding domestic breeds, no one set such a task: the purity of the breeds is maintained artificially. But such experiments were carried out with laboratory fruit flies: they carried out artificial selection for non-crossing between different lines. And they succeeded. Let’s imagine that someone suddenly decides on such an experiment: they release onto some uninhabited island, where there are no land predators (if such islands still exist), two breeds of dogs that differ greatly in size, say, bulldogs and dachshunds. If both breeds survive on the island, I think that after some time they will give rise to two different species. In general, the process of speciation is quite long. Molecular genetic studies have shown that it usually takes one to six million years for two isolated populations of small passerine birds to reach the species level of difference.

How valid are the arguments of opponents of the theory? Do the problems of accepting or not accepting a theory lie only in its superficial understanding?

It seems to me that all opponents of the theory of natural selection can be divided into three camps.

1. Rejection of the theory due to its alleged contradiction with the principles of universal morality and/or church dogmas.

These arguments have not changed in the 150 years since Darwin's theory was published. It makes no sense to give scientific evidence of evolution in response: since the arguments of opponents of the theory are unscientific, the answer should be the same. And I have it: I remember that in the 17th century, Galileo proved that the Earth revolves around the Sun, and not vice versa. What did they do to him? They forced me to renounce my beliefs because they contradicted the Holy Scriptures. Well, who was right in the end?

2. Scientific criticism of anti-Darwinists.

Quite a large number of scientists have consistently criticized the theory of natural selection and continue to do so. I cannot now fully cover this issue, so I recommend N. N. Vorontsov’s book “Development of Evolutionary Ideas in Biology,” where special attention is paid to this. Such criticism is quite constructive and useful. The only problem is that, as a rule, these scientists offer their own alternative theories, which in methodological terms turn out to be much weaker than the synthetic theory of evolution, or do not even meet the scientific criteria that I spoke about above.

3. Scientific criticism of Darwinists.

The theory of natural selection is so logically simple and understandable and supported by such a huge amount of facts that it simply cannot be wrong. Most biologists understand this. Another thing is that life is a very complex phenomenon, and modern evolutionary theory gives only a greatly simplified picture. This creates the basis for further development of the theory through constructive criticism.

What is the situation with the evolution of Homo sapiens today? What does modern science think about the missing links of “relatives”?

Before talking about the transitional links between man and apes, I will say a few general phrases about transitional forms in general. The process of evolution is smooth and continuous, and highlight different stages, for example, time periods of existence individual species, is possible only conditionally. By highlighting “transitional links”, we try to display the continuity of the evolutionary process using a discrete description language. And the “transitional link” is not the arithmetic mean between the two species being compared; it can and should have some of its own specific features that are absent in other species (after all, it – the “link” – must live somewhere and eat something) . To clarify what has been said, I will give an example. Let's say you didn't take physics at school and don't know anything about wave theory Sveta. Will it be easy for you to believe that green is a transitional link between red and violet? In the animal world, in fact, everything consists of transitional links. Amphibians are a transitional link between fish and reptiles. Dinosaurs are a transitional link between reptiles and birds. Apes are a transitional link between monkeys and humans. And everything is in order with the transitional links between chimpanzees and modern humans: the evolutionary series of humans is perhaps the most complete of those currently studied. Without being able to dwell on this issue in detail, I refer readers to the website http://macroevolution.narod.ru, where the modern ideas about the origin of man.

Why did man and ape survive, but intermediate forms did not? Can you imagine two highly developed civilizations of two different types of people existing in parallel and interacting little? Me not. It is even more difficult to imagine their peaceful coexistence if one of the civilizations were at a higher stage of development than the other. In the Stone Age, people hunted large animals - mammoths, deer. What would they eat now: would they make regular raids on herds of cows and sheep? It is not difficult to imagine their future fate. Two species occupying the same ecological niche cannot coexist within the same territory - a well-known ecological rule. So one can only regret the absence of other species of people on Earth, but there is nothing to be surprised about. To be fair, it must be said that such a picture emerged relatively recently - 30 thousand years ago, when competition for food between tribes of hunters increased. Before this, for more than 4 million years, different types of ancestors of modern humans lived together. For example, in Europe, the tribes of Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons lived side by side for 30 thousand years. This is almost four times more than the age of modern civilization: the first states appeared approximately 7-8 thousand years ago.

What will the man of the future be like as a result of evolution?

Natural selection adapts random changes in the genotype to random changes environment. In addition to directional factors of evolution (natural selection), there are also stochastic ones (genetic drift). So it is possible to explain how evolution took place in the past, but alas, it is impossible to make predictions. I can only predict that if global cataclysms do not occur and humanity manages to avoid an environmental crisis associated with overpopulation, then the growth and life expectancy of people will increase slightly.

Are there estimated models of evolution as a result of a global catastrophe (asteroid impact or nuclear war)?

They probably exist, I don’t know. I can only give my assessment. Over the history of life on Earth, there have been many collisions with asteroids, but they have not led to mass extinctions on a planet-wide scale. Nevertheless, there were several mass extinctions, but they all occurred gradually (over several tens or hundreds of thousands of years) as a result of environmental crises. There is no clear answer to why environmental crises occur. Perhaps this is due to the “aging” of ecosystems: the evolution of species along the path of specialization and the appearance of voids in ecological niches that have nothing to fill. The last environmental crisis, characterized by the fastest mass extinction of species in the entire history of the Earth, began 10 thousand years ago and is associated with the emergence of human civilization.

All species can be roughly divided into r- and K-strategists (the terms are taken from the names of the variables in the population growth equation); r-strategists are characterized by high fertility rates, weakly expressed care for offspring, high mortality of individuals (bacteria, mouse-like rodents), while for K-strategists the opposite is true (large mammals, humans). In the event of an environmental disaster, K-strategists are more likely to die, and r-strategists are more likely to survive.

Do museums display the latest advances in the theory of evolution in their exhibits? Who goes to the Darwin Museum?

From January to October 2008, the museum was visited by 301 thousand 157 people - that's about 1000 people a day. Since the museum's exposition illustrates and complements the school biology curriculum, a significant part of the visitors are schoolchildren of all ages as part of excursion groups. But the museum cannot satisfy all requests for excursion services, because otherwise the guides would interfere with each other. We conduct 1,500 excursions per year, which is approximately 15% of total attendance. As survey results show, the main visitors to the museum - more than 80% - are parents with children. The museum builds its work with visitors precisely taking into account the fact that the main visitors to the museum are family groups. Teaching aids have been developed for all ages and for all thematic sections of the exhibition. With their help, visitors can independently and deeply familiarize themselves with the exhibition materials. Every year the museum hosts environmental holidays: water day, earth day, bird day, etc. Children and their parents are offered environmental games, quizzes and master classes; prizes await the winners, and there are no losers. Every year we come up with something new. The museum staff is trying to do everything so that, once in our museum, visitors want to come back here again and again.

This may sound somewhat immodest, but today, among the museums in the world, the Darwin Museum most fully reflects the achievements of the theory of evolution. There are museums that are noticeably superior to ours in terms of exhibition space and equipment. technical means and attendance - for example, natural history museums in London, New York, Chicago - but they tell the story of how evolution happened. If there are exhibitions dedicated specifically to the driving forces of the evolutionary process, they are very modest. We try to show in our exposition the current level of knowledge on evolutionary topics, citing not only “classical” examples from textbooks, but also information from popular science and scientific articles, demonstrating the results of our own scientific research employees, we consult with specialists. In particular, the museum maintains close scientific ties with the Department of Biological Evolution of Moscow State University and the Institute of Ecology and Evolution. A. N. Severtsova. If you show the current level of science, problematic and unresolved issues, then visitors may get the impression that in general everything in the theory of evolution is shaky and incomprehensible. Therefore, we try to show already “established” indisputable facts, albeit not so “modern” - 20-30 years ago. I cannot say how often exhibitions change in museums around the world - it depends on the policy of a particular museum. Our exposition is relatively young, it is just over 10 years old, but during this period we have almost completely updated it.

In my opinion, our museum lags somewhat behind Western ones in the means of museum display. In European museums, visitors are constantly offered to touch, move, listen to something, and all interactive means are organically woven into the overall logical outline of the exhibition. Our museum is still more “academic”: the main means of presenting material are exhibits and accompanying texts. But here we are not standing still: new interactive exhibits periodically appear in the permanent exhibition - audio blocks, “live labels”, “fur stands”, etc. (come and see for yourself). The interactive complex “Walk the Path of Evolution” is being prepared for commissioning; there are plans to remodel the “Stages of Knowledge of Living Nature” hall according to the principle of an interactive exhibition.

Do people in Great Britain know who Charles Darwin is? Or is he, like Dickens, in oblivion there?

Everyone in Great Britain knows Darwin, if only because his portrait is depicted on the ten-pound note. And he is revered as a great scientist: his grave is located in Westminster Abbey next to Newton’s grave. Another thing is that, as throughout the world, the general public has an ambiguous attitude towards his scientific works.

There is a Darwin Museum in Great Britain. It is located in the London suburb of Down, the house where Darwin lived with his family. There is a small exhibition on the theory of evolution, but overall it is a house-museum of a scientist. The Natural History Museum in London recently opened a new Darwin Centre, an extension to the main museum building. In essence, this is a storage facility where the museum’s scientific collections are stored. There, in particular, there are the collections of Darwin himself, which he made during his voyage on the Beagle, and this is all that connects the center with the scientist. As museum staff explain, they named the museum's scientific collections repository after Darwin to highlight his contribution to the formation of biology as a modern scientific discipline. The Darwin Center is accessible to visitors, where they can get acquainted with the purpose and specifics of scientific collections, the conditions of their storage and the work of scientific staff.

I wonder why most of the lawsuits against the teaching of Darwin's theory in schools occur in the USA - an English-speaking country, an eternal ally of Great Britain?

Lawsuits against the teaching of Darwin's theory took place not only in the USA, but, for example, also in Serbia, Italy, and now in Russia. But only in the United States were legal proceedings against Darwin successful. This is most likely due to the political structure of the States. In any other country, a ban on teaching would have to be introduced everywhere, which is impossible, since without evolutionary theory biology will cease to exist as a science. And in the USA the acceptance procedure court decisions simplified: if you don’t like the laws of one state, move to another. Many people live there like that.

In 1859, the work of the English naturalist Charles Darwin, “The Origin of Species,” was published. Since then, evolutionary theory has been key in 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 are descended from a common ancestor. She emphasizes the naturalistic origin of life with change. Complex creatures evolve from simpler ones, this takes time. Random mutations occur in the genetic code of the body; beneficial mutations are retained, helping to survive. Over time they accumulate, and the result is a different species, not just a variation of the original, but a completely new creature.

Basic principles of Darwin's theory

Darwin's theory about the origin of man is included in the general theory about the evolutionary development of living nature. Darwin believed that Homo Sapiens evolved from an inferior form of life and shared a common ancestor with the ape. The same laws that gave rise to other organisms led to its appearance. 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. Device. Adaptation is an inherited trait that increases the likelihood of surviving and reproducing in a particular environment.
4. Natural selection. The environment "selects" living organisms with more suitable traits. The offspring inherits the best, and the species is improved for a specific habitat.
5. Speciation. Over generations, beneficial mutations gradually increase, and bad ones disappear. Over time, the accumulated changes become so great that a new species results.

Darwin's theory - fact or fiction?

Darwin's theory of evolution has been the subject of much debate for many 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 Darwinians, in 1994 paleontologists found the fossil remains of Ambulocetus, a walking whale. Its webbed front paws helped it move on land, and its powerful hind paws and tail helped it swim deftly. IN last years More and more remains of transitional species, the so-called “missing links,” are being found. Thus, Charles Darwin's theory about 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 of evolutionary theory:

1. Morphological– according to Darwinian 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, similar oral structures in different insects, atavisms, rudiments (organs that have lost their significance in the process of evolution).
2. Embryological– all vertebrates exhibit a great similarity in 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– 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 alone is enough for critics to question its entire validity. No one has ever observed macroevolution - seen how one species transformed into another. And in general, when will at least one monkey turn into a human? This question is asked by all those who doubt the correctness of Darwin's arguments.

Facts refuting Darwin's theory:

1. Research has shown that planet Earth is approximately 20-30 thousand years old. This has been recently discussed by many geologists who study the amount of cosmic dust on our planet and the age of rivers and mountains. Darwinian evolution took billions of years.
2. Humans have 46 chromosomes, and apes have 48. This does not fit into the idea that humans and apes had a common ancestor. Having “lost” the chromosomes along the way from the ape, the species could not evolve into a reasonable one. Over the past few thousand years, not a single whale has come onto land, and not a single monkey has turned into a human.
3. Natural beauty, which, for example, anti-Darwinists include a peacock's tail, has nothing to do with usefulness. If there were evolution, the world would be inhabited by monsters.

Darwin's theory and modern science

Darwin's theory of evolution came to light when scientists still knew nothing about genes. Darwin observed the pattern of evolution but was unaware of 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 theory 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 claim 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

Charles Darwin's theory of evolution 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 Darwin’s contemporary and like-minded person, Herbert Spencer.
2. Charles Darwin not only studied exotic animal species, but also dined on them.
3. The Anglican Church has officially apologized to the author of the theory of evolution, albeit 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 during 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. The Catholic and Anglican churches accepted Darwin's theory, explaining that God, as the creator, gave impetus to the beginning of life, and then it developed naturally. The Orthodox wing is still unfriendly to Darwinists.

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We all know very well who Charles Darwin is, or at least we have heard about his theory of the evolution of life on earth. Once the connection scheme he proposed was accepted unconditionally, but there were always opponents to such a view. Let's try to figure out how true this theory is.

Myth 1. Darwin invented the theory of evolution

In fact, the first scientific theory of evolution was developed at the beginning of the 19th century by Jean Baptiste Lamarck. He came up with the idea that acquired characteristics are inherited. For example, if an animal feeds on leaves from tall trees, its neck will elongate, and each successive generation will have a slightly longer neck than its ancestors. This is how, according to Lamarck, giraffes appeared.

Charles Darwin improved this theory and introduced the concept of “natural selection” into it. According to the theory, individuals with those characteristics and qualities that are most conducive to survival have a greater chance of procreation.

Myth 2. Darwin claimed that man descended from apes

The scientist never said anything like that. Charles Darwin suggested that apes and humans may have had a common ape-like ancestor. Based on comparative anatomical and embryological studies, he was able to show that the anatomical, physiological and ontogenetic characteristics of humans and representatives of the order of primates are very similar. This is how the simial (monkey) theory of anthropogenesis was born.

Myth 3. Before Darwin, scientists did not correlate humans with primates

In fact, the similarities between humans and monkeys were noticed by scientists at the end of the 18th century. The French naturalist Buffon suggested that people are descendants of monkeys, and the Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus classified humans as primates, where in modern science we coexist as a species with monkeys.

Myth 4. According to Darwin's theory of evolution, the fittest survives

This myth stems from a misunderstanding of the term natural selection. According to Darwin, it is not the strongest that survives, but the fittest. Often the simplest organisms are the most resilient. This explains why the strong dinosaurs became extinct, and single-celled organisms survived both the meteorite explosion and the ice age that followed it.

Myth 5. Darwin renounced his theory at the end of his life

This is nothing more than an urban legend. 33 years after the scientist’s death, in 1915, a Baptist publication published the story of how Darwin renounced his theory just before his death. There is no reliable evidence of this fact.

Myth 6. Darwin's theory of evolution is a Masonic conspiracy

Fans of conspiracy theories claim that Darwin and his relatives were Freemasons. Freemasons are members of a secret religious society that arose in the 18th century in Europe. Noble people became members of Masonic lodges; they are often credited with invisible leadership of the whole world.

Historians do not confirm the fact that Darwin or any of his relatives were members of any secret societies. The scientist, on the contrary, was in no hurry to publish his theory, work on which was carried out for 20 years. In addition, many of the facts discovered by Darwin were confirmed by further researchers.

Now we’ll take a closer look at what opponents of Darwin’s theory say:

The person who put forward the theory of evolution is the English amateur naturalist Charles Robert Darwin.

Darwin was never really trained in biology, but had only an amateur interest in nature and animals. And as a result of this interest, in 1832 he volunteered to travel from England on the state research ship Beagle and sailed to different parts of the world for five years. During the trip, young Darwin was impressed by the animal species he saw, especially various types finches that lived on the Galapagos Islands. He thought that the difference in the beaks of these birds depended on the environment. Based on this assumption, he made a conclusion for himself: living organisms were not created by God separately, but originated from a single ancestor and then modified depending on the conditions of nature.

This hypothesis of Darwin was not based on any scientific explanation or experiment. Only thanks to the support of the then famous materialist biologists, over time this Darwinian hypothesis became established as a theory. According to this theory, living organisms descend from one ancestor, but over a long period of time undergo small changes and begin to differ from each other. Species that have more successfully adapted to natural conditions pass on their characteristics to the next generation. Thus, these beneficial changes, over time, transform the individual into a living organism completely different from its ancestor. What was meant by “useful changes” remained unknown. According to Darwin, man was the most developed product of this mechanism. Having brought this mechanism to life in his imagination, Darwin called it “evolution by natural selection.” From now on he thought that he had found the roots of the “origin of species”: the basis of one species is another species. He revealed these ideas in 1859 in his book On the Origin of Species.

However, Darwin realized that there was much that was unresolved in his theory. He admits this in his book Difficulties of Theory. These difficulties lay in the complex organs of living organisms that could not appear by chance (for example, eyes), as well as fossil remains, and the instincts of animals. Darwin hoped that these difficulties would be overcome in the process of new discoveries, but he gave incomplete explanations for some of them

In contrast to the purely naturalistic theory of evolution, two alternatives are put forward. One is of a purely religious nature: this is the so-called “creationism,” a literal perception of the biblical legend about how the Almighty created the universe and life in all its diversity. Creationism is professed only by religious fundamentalists; this doctrine has a narrow base, it is on the periphery of scientific thought. Therefore, due to lack of space, we will limit ourselves to just mentioning its existence.

But another alternative has made a very serious bid for a place under the scientific sun. The theory of “intelligent design,” among whose supporters there are many serious scientists, while recognizing evolution as a mechanism of intraspecific adaptation to changing environmental conditions (microevolution), categorically rejects its claims to be the key to the mystery of the origin of species (macroevolution), not to mention about the origin of life itself.

Life is so complex and diverse that it is absurd to think about the possibility of its spontaneous origin and development: it must inevitably be based on intelligent design, say the proponents of this theory. What kind of mind this is is not important. Proponents of intelligent design theory belong to the category of agnostics rather than believers; they are not particularly interested in theology. They are busy only punching gaping holes in the theory of evolution, and they have succeeded in riddling it so much that the dominant dogma in biology now resembles not so much a granite monolith as Swiss cheese.

During the whole history Western civilization It was considered an axiom that life was created by a higher power. Even Aristotle expressed the conviction that the incredible complexity, elegant harmony and harmony of life and the universe cannot be a random product of spontaneous processes. The most famous teleological argument for the existence of intelligence was formulated by the English religious thinker William Paley in his book Natural Theology, published in 1802.

Paley reasoned as follows: if, while walking in the forest, I trip over a stone, I will have no doubt about its natural origin. But if I see a clock lying on the ground, I will have to assume, willingly or unwillingly, that it could not have arisen on its own; someone had to collect it. And if a clock (a relatively small and simple device) has an intelligent organizer - a watchmaker, then the Universe itself (a large device) and the biological objects filling it (more complex devices than a clock) must have a great organizer - the Creator.

But then Charles Darwin showed up and everything changed. In 1859, he published a landmark work entitled “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Survival of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life,” which was destined to revolutionize scientific and social thought. Based on the advances of plant breeders (“artificial selection”) and his own observations of birds (finches) in the Galapagos Islands, Darwin concluded that organisms could undergo small changes to adapt to changing environmental conditions through “natural selection.”

He further concluded that, given a long enough time, the sum of such small changes gives rise to larger changes and, in particular, leads to the appearance of new species. According to Darwin, new traits that reduce an organism's chances of survival are ruthlessly rejected by nature, while traits that provide an advantage in the struggle for life, gradually accumulating, over time allow their carriers to gain the upper hand over less adapted competitors and displace them from contested ecological niches.

This purely naturalistic mechanism, absolutely devoid of any purpose or design, from Darwin's point of view exhaustively explained how life developed and why all living beings are so perfectly adapted to the conditions of their environment. The theory of evolution implies a continuous progression of gradually changing living beings in a series from the most primitive forms to higher organisms, the crown of which is man.

The problem, however, is that Darwin's theory was purely speculative, because in those years the paleontological evidence did not provide any basis for his conclusions. All over the world, scientists have unearthed many fossil remains of extinct organisms from past geological eras, but they all fit within the clear boundaries of the same immutable taxonomy. In the fossil record there was not a single intermediate species, not a single creature with morphological characteristics that would confirm the correctness of the theory formulated on the basis of abstract conclusions without reliance on facts.

Darwin clearly saw the weakness of his theory. It was not for nothing that he did not dare to publish it for more than two decades and sent his major work to print only when he learned that another English naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, was preparing to come up with his own theory, strikingly similar to Darwin’s.

It is interesting to note that both opponents behaved like true gentlemen. Darwin wrote a polite letter to Wallace outlining evidence of his primacy, and he responded with an equally polite message inviting him to present a joint report at the Royal Society. After this, Wallace publicly acknowledged Darwin's priority and until the end of his days he never complained about his bitter fate. These were the morals of the Victorian era. Talk about progress afterwards.

The theory of evolution was reminiscent of a building erected on grass so that later, when the necessary materials were brought in, a foundation could be laid under it. Its author relied on the progress of paleontology, which, he was convinced, would make it possible in the future to find transitional forms of life and confirm the validity of his theoretical calculations.

But the collections of paleontologists grew and grew, and there was no trace of confirmation of Darwin’s theory. Scientists found similar species, but could not find a single bridge from one species to another. But from the theory of evolution it follows that such bridges not only existed, but that there should have been a great many of them, for the paleontological record must reflect all the countless stages of the long history of evolution and, in fact, consist entirely of transitional links.

Some of Darwin's followers, like himself, believe that we just need to be patient - we just haven't found intermediate forms yet, but we will certainly find them in the future. Alas, their hopes are unlikely to come true, since the existence of such transitional links would conflict with one of the fundamental postulates of the theory of evolution itself.

Let us imagine, for example, that the front legs of dinosaurs gradually evolved into bird wings. But this means that during a long transitional period these limbs were neither paws nor wings, and their functional uselessness doomed the owners of such useless stumps to obvious defeat in the cruel struggle for life. According to Darwinian teaching, nature had to mercilessly uproot such intermediate species and, therefore, nip the process of speciation in the bud.

But it is generally accepted that birds descended from lizards. That's not what the debate is about. Opponents of Darwinian teachings fully admit that the prototype of a bird's wing could indeed be the front paw of a dinosaur. They only assert that no matter what disturbances occur in living nature, they could not occur through the mechanism of natural selection. Some other principle had to operate - say, the use by the carrier of the intelligent principle of universal prototype templates.

The fossil record stubbornly demonstrates the failure of evolutionism. During the first three-plus billion years of the existence of life, only the simplest single-celled organisms lived on our planet. But then, approximately 570 million years ago, the Cambrian period began, and within a few million years (by geological standards - a fleeting moment), as if by magic, almost the entire diversity of life in its current form arose out of nowhere, without any intermediate links According to Darwin's theory, this “Cambrian explosion,” as it is called, simply could not have happened.

Another example: during the so-called Permian-Triassic extinction event 250 million years ago, life on earth almost ceased: 90% of all species of marine organisms and 70% of terrestrial ones disappeared. However, the basic taxonomy of the fauna has not undergone any significant changes - the main types of living creatures that lived on our planet before the “great extinction” were completely preserved after the disaster. But if we proceed from Darwin’s concept of natural selection, during this period of intense competition to fill vacant ecological niches, numerous transitional species would certainly have arisen. However, this did not happen, from which it again follows that the theory is incorrect.

Darwinists are desperately looking for transitional forms of life, but all their efforts have not yet been crowned with success. The maximum that they can find is the similarities between different species, but the signs of genuine intermediate creatures are still only a dream for evolutionists. Sensations break out periodically: a transition link has been found! But in practice it invariably turns out that the alarm is false, that the found organism is nothing more than a manifestation of ordinary intraspecific variability. Or even just a falsification like the notorious Piltdown man.

It is impossible to describe the joy of evolutionists when a fossil skull of a human type with an ape-like lower jaw was found in England in 1908. Here it is, real proof that Charles Darwin was right! The jubilant scientists had no incentive to take a good look at the treasured find, otherwise they might not have failed to notice the obvious absurdities in its structure and not realize that the “fossil” was a fake, and a very crude one at that. And it took 40 years before scientific world was forced to officially admit that he had been played. It turned out that some hitherto unknown prankster simply glued the lower jaw of a by no means fossil orangutan with the skull of an equally fresh dead homosapien.

By the way, Darwin’s personal discovery - the microevolution of Galapagos finches under environmental pressure - also did not stand the test of time. Several decades later, climatic conditions on these Pacific islands changed again, and the birds' beak length returned to its previous normal. No speciation occurred, just the same species of birds temporarily adapted to changing environmental conditions - the most trivial intraspecific variability.

Some Darwinists realize that their theory has reached a dead end and are feverishly maneuvering. For example, the late Harvard biologist Stephen Jay Gould proposed the hypothesis of “punctuated equilibrium” or “dotted evolution.” This is a kind of hybrid of Darwinism with the “catastrophism” of Cuvier, who postulated the discontinuous development of life through a series of catastrophes. According to Gould, evolution occurred in leaps and bounds, and each leap followed some universal natural disaster with such speed that it did not have time to leave any trace in the fossil record.

Although Gould considered himself an evolutionist, his theory undermined the basic tenet of Darwin's doctrine of speciation through the gradual accumulation of favorable traits. However, “dotted evolution” is just as speculative and as devoid of empirical evidence as classical Darwinism.

Thus, paleontological evidence strongly refutes the concept of macroevolution. But this is far from the only evidence of its inconsistency. The development of genetics has completely destroyed the belief that environmental pressures can cause morphological changes. There are countless mice whose tails have been cut off by researchers in the hope that their offspring will inherit a new trait. Alas, tailed offspring persistently were born to tailless parents. The laws of genetics are inexorable: all the characteristics of an organism are encoded in parental genes and are directly transmitted from them to descendants.

Evolutionists had to, following the principles of their teaching, adapt to new conditions. “Neo-Darwinism” appeared, in which the place of classical “adaptation” was taken by the mutation mechanism. According to neo-Darwinists, it is by no means impossible that random gene mutations could give rise to a fairly high degree of variability, which again could contribute to the survival of the species and, being inherited by the offspring, could gain a foothold and give its carriers a decisive advantage in the struggle for an ecological niche.

However, deciphering the genetic code dealt a crushing blow to this theory. Mutations occur rarely and in the vast majority of cases are of an unfavorable nature, due to which the likelihood that a “new favorable trait” will become established in any population for a long enough period to give it an advantage in the fight against competitors is practically zero.

In addition, natural selection destroys genetic information as it weeds out traits that are not conducive to survival, leaving only “selected” traits. But they can in no way be considered “favorable” mutations, because in all cases these genetic traits were initially inherent in the population and were only waiting in the wings to manifest themselves when environmental pressure “cleared out” unnecessary or harmful garbage.

The progress of molecular biology in recent decades has finally driven evolutionists into a corner. In 1996, Lehigh University biochemistry professor Michael Bahe published the acclaimed book “Darwin’s Black Box,” in which he showed that the body contains incredibly complex biochemical systems that cannot be explained from a Darwinian perspective. The author described a number of intracellular molecular machines and biological processes characterized by “irreducible complexity.”

Michael Bahe used this term to describe systems consisting of many components, each of which is of critical importance. That is, the mechanism can only work if all its components are present; As soon as even one of them fails, the whole system goes wrong. The inevitable conclusion follows from this: in order for the mechanism to fulfill its functional purpose, all its component parts had to be born and “turned on” at the same time - contrary to the main postulate of the theory of evolution.

The book also describes cascade phenomena, for example, the mechanism of blood clotting, which involves one and a half dozen specialized proteins plus intermediate forms formed during the process. When a cut occurs in the blood, a multi-stage reaction is triggered, in which proteins activate each other in a chain. In the absence of any of these proteins, the reaction automatically stops. At the same time, the cascade proteins are highly specialized; none of them performs any function other than the formation of a blood clot. In other words, “they certainly had to arise immediately in the form of a single complex,” writes Bahe.

Cascading is the antagonist of evolution. It is impossible to imagine that the blind, chaotic process of natural selection would ensure that many useless elements are stored for future use, which remain in a latent state until the last of them finally appears in the light of God and allows the system to immediately turn on and earn money. full power. Such a concept fundamentally contradicts the fundamental principles of the theory of evolution, which Charles Darwin himself was well aware of.

“If the possibility of the existence of any complex organ, which could in no way be the result of numerous successive small changes, be proven, my theory will crumble to dust,” Darwin frankly admitted. In particular, he was extremely concerned about the problem of the eye: how to explain the evolution of this most complex organ, which acquires functional significance only at the very last moment, when all its component parts are already in place? After all, if you follow the logic of his teaching, any attempt by the organism to begin the multi-stage process of creating a vision mechanism would be mercilessly suppressed by natural selection. And where, out of the blue, did trilobites, the first living creatures on earth, develop developed organs of vision?

After the publication of Darwin's Black Box, its author was hit with a hail of violent attacks and threats (mainly on the Internet). Moreover, the overwhelming majority of supporters of the theory of evolution expressed confidence that “Darwin’s model of the origin of unsimplified complex biochemical systems is set forth in hundreds of thousands of scientific publications.” However, nothing could be further from the truth.

Anticipating the storm his book would cause as he worked on it, Michael Bahe immersed himself in studying the scientific literature to gain insight into how evolutionists explained the origins of complex biochemical systems. And... I found absolutely nothing. It turned out that there is not a single hypothesis for the evolutionary path of formation of such systems. Official science arranged a conspiracy of silence around an uncomfortable topic: not a single scientific report, not a single scientific monograph, not a single scientific symposium was devoted to it.

Since then, several attempts have been made to develop an evolutionary model for the formation of systems of this kind, but all of them have invariably failed. Many scientists of the naturalistic school clearly understand what a dead end their favorite theory has reached. “We fundamentally refuse to put intelligent design in the place of chance and necessity,” writes biochemist Franklin Harold. “But at the same time, we must admit that, apart from fruitless speculation, to this day no one has been able to propose a detailed Darwinian mechanism for the evolution of any biochemical system.”

Like this: we refuse on principle, and that’s it! Just like Martin Luther: “Here I stand and cannot help it”! But the leader of the Reformation at least substantiated his position with 95 theses, but here there is only one bare principle, dictated by blind worship of the ruling dogma, and nothing more. I believe, O Lord!

Even more problematic is the neo-Darwinian theory of the spontaneous generation of life. To Darwin's credit, he did not touch upon this topic at all. His book deals with the origin of species, not life. But the founder’s followers went a step further and proposed an evolutionary explanation of the phenomenon of life itself. According to the naturalistic model, the barrier between inanimate nature and life was overcome spontaneously due to a combination of favorable environmental conditions.

However, the concept of the spontaneous generation of life is built on sand, because it is in blatant contradiction with one of the most fundamental laws of nature - the second law of thermodynamics. It states that in a closed system (in the absence of a targeted supply of energy from the outside), entropy inevitably increases, i.e. the level of organization or degree of complexity of such a system inexorably decreases. But the reverse process is impossible.

The great English astrophysicist Stephen Hawking in his book “ Short story time” writes: “According to the second law of thermodynamics, the entropy of an isolated system always and in all cases increases, and when two systems merge, the entropy combined system higher than the sum of the entropies of the individual systems included in it.” Hawking adds: “In any closed system the level of disorganization, i.e. entropy inevitably increases with time.”

But if entropic decay is the fate of any system, then the possibility of spontaneous generation of life is absolutely excluded, i.e. spontaneous increase in the level of organization of the system when a biological barrier is broken. The spontaneous generation of life under any circumstances must be accompanied by an increase in the degree of complexity of the system at the molecular level, and entropy prevents this. Chaos cannot by itself generate order; this is prohibited by the law of nature.

Information theory dealt another blow to the concept of spontaneous generation of life. In Darwin's time, science believed that a cell was simply a primitive container filled with protoplasm. However, with the development of molecular biology, it became clear that a living cell is a mechanism of incredible complexity, carrying an incomprehensible amount of information. But information by itself does not appear out of nothing. According to the law of conservation of information, its quantity in a closed system never increases under any circumstances. External pressure can cause a “shuffling” of information already available in the system, but its total volume will remain at the same level or decrease due to an increase in entropy.

In a word, as the world-famous English physicist, astronomer and science fiction writer Sir Fred Hoyle writes: “There is not a single shred of objective evidence in favor of the hypothesis that life spontaneously arose in an organic soup on our earth.” Hoyle's co-author, astrobiologist Chandra Wickramasinghe, expressed the same idea more colorfully: "The probability of spontaneous generation of life is as insignificant as the probability of a hurricane wind sweeping over a landfill and in one gust reassembling a working airliner from the garbage."

Many other pieces of evidence can be cited to refute attempts to present evolution as a universal mechanism for the origin and development of life in all its diversity. But the above facts, I believe, are sufficient to show what a difficult situation Darwin’s teaching found itself in.

And how do advocates of evolution react to all this? Some of them, in particular Francis Crick (who shared the Nobel Prize with James Watson for the discovery of the structure of DNA), became disillusioned with Darwinism and believed that life was brought to earth from outer space. This idea was first put forward more than a century ago by another Nobel laureate, the outstanding Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius, who proposed the “panspermia” hypothesis.

However, supporters of the theory of seeding the earth with the germs of life from space do not notice or prefer not to notice that such an approach only pushes the problem back one step, but does not solve it at all. Let us assume that life was indeed brought from space, but then the question arises: where did it come from there - did it spontaneously originate or was it created?

Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, who share this point of view, found an elegantly ironic way out of the situation. Having given a lot of evidence in favor of the hypothesis that life was brought to our planet from outside in their book Evolution from Space, Sir Fred and his co-author ask: how did life originate there, outside the earth? And they answer: it is known how - the Almighty created it. In other words, the authors make it clear that they have set themselves a narrow task and are not going to go beyond it, they are not up to it.

However, the bulk of evolutionists categorically reject any attempts to cast a shadow on their teaching. The intelligent design hypothesis, like a red rag used to tease a bull, evokes in them paroxysms of uncontrollable (one is tempted to say animal) rage. Evolutionary biologist Richard von Sternberg, while not sharing the concept of intelligent design, nevertheless allowed a scientific article in support of this hypothesis to be published in the journal Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, which he headed. After which the editor was hit with such a barrage of abuse, curses and threats that he was forced to seek protection from the FBI.

The position of the evolutionists was eloquently summed up by one of the most vociferous Darwinists, the English zoologist Richard Dawkins: “We can say with absolute certainty that anyone who does not believe in evolution is either an ignorant, a fool, or insane (and maybe even a scumbag, although in the latter I don’t want to believe it).” This phrase alone is enough to lose all respect for Dawkins. Like orthodox Marxists waging war against revisionism, Darwinists do not argue with their opponents, but denounce them; they do not debate with them, but anathematize them.

This is the classic reaction of a mainstream religion to a challenge from a dangerous heresy. This comparison is quite appropriate. Like Marxism, Darwinism has long degenerated, petrified and turned into an inert pseudo-religious dogma. Yes, by the way, that’s what they called it - Marxism in biology. Karl Max himself enthusiastically welcomed Darwin's theory as “the natural scientific basis of the class struggle in history.”

And the more holes are discovered in the dilapidated teaching, the more fierce is the resistance of its adherents. Their material well-being and spiritual comfort are under threat, their entire universe is collapsing, and there is no anger more uncontrollable than the anger of a true believer, whose faith is crumbling under the blows of an inexorable reality. They will cling to their beliefs tooth and nail and stand to the last. For when an idea dies, it is reborn into an ideology, and ideology is absolutely intolerant of competition.

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………….……..3

I. The history of the creation of Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory………………….….……4

II. Basic provisions of evolutionary teaching………………………………...6

III. Variability……………………………………………………….………..8

IV. Artificial selection..............................................................................................10

V. Natural selection…………………………………………..………………….13

1. Driving selection…………………………...………………...………………15

2. Stabilizing selection……………………………………………17

3. Disruptive selection…………………………….…………...………19

4. Sexual selection………………………………………….……………….…20

5. The struggle for existence……………………………….…………...….22

VI. The significance of Darwin's theory of evolution…………………..………………25

Conclusion. …………………………………………………….………...…..26

References………………………………………………………...28

Introduction.

In this essay, I examined Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, which occupies a special position in biology. In terms of its significance in the development of biology and science in general, it stands above many past and present evolutionary constructs. It is not a comprehensive evolutionary theory and solves only part of the problems of the theory of evolution. Nevertheless, Darwin's constructions, of course, belong to the outstanding achievements of the human mind and occupy a leading place in the theoretical biology of the past and present.

The theory of evolution played a revolutionary role in biology, determining the direction of its development for many years. At the same time, the complex and largely speculative nature of Darwin's theoretical constructions caused numerous disputes, disagreements and misunderstanding among his contemporaries. The lack of factual data that could confirm or refute the correctness of Darwin's evolutionary views forced biologists to begin a rigorous scientific study of individual provisions of the theory of speciation. A long period of development of Darwinian theory began, which continues to this day.

This theory has always created a lot of controversy around itself, there is its

followers and opponents, which means it is worthy of attention, which is why my work is dedicated to it.

I.The history of the creation of evolutionary theory.

The English scientist Charles Darwin made an invaluable contribution to biological science by creating a theory of the development of the animal world, based on the determining role of natural selection as the driving force of the evolutionary process. The foundation for the creation of the theory of evolution was his observations during a trip around the world on the Beagle. He began developing the theory of evolution in 1837, and only twenty years later, at a meeting of the Linnean Society in London, Darwin read a report containing the main provisions of the theory of natural selection.

The main work of the scientist’s entire life, named verbosely according to the tradition of that era: “The Origin of Species by Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Breeds in the Struggle for Life,” was published on November 24, 1859 and sold 1,250 copies, which at that time for scientific work was considered unheard of. It should be noted that the first sketch of the theory of evolution was made by Darwin back in 1842.

In this work, Darwin showed that the species of plants and animals are not constant, but changeable, and that the species that exist today evolved naturally from other species that existed earlier. The expediency observed in living nature was created and is being created through natural selection of undirected changes beneficial to the body. Thus, in the struggle for existence, the forms most adapted to given environmental conditions survive.

In 1868, Darwin published his second major work -
“Change in Domestic Animals and Cultivated Plants,” which was a supplement to the main work. This work includes a lot of factual evidence of the evolution of organic forms, drawn from centuries-old human practice. Darwin published his third major work on the theory of evolution, “The Descent of Man and Sexual Selection,” in 1871, and was supplemented by the book “The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.”

It is the evolutionary theory that most clearly describes the process of speciation in living nature, and therefore it is advisable to focus on it.

II. Basic provisions of the evolutionary process.

While traveling on the Beagle, studying geology South America, Darwin became convinced of the inconsistency of the catastrophe theory and emphasized the importance of natural factors in history earth's crust and its animal and plant populations. Thanks to paleontological finds, he notes the similarities between extinct and modern animals of South America. He finds so-called transitional forms that combine the characteristics of several orders. Thus, the fact of continuity between modern and extinct forms was established.

Darwin also names a number of connecting forms. In particular, South American

Macrauchenia combines two large divisions: pariodactyls and odd-toeds

ungulates; Hipparion is an intermediate form between

the modern horse and some ancient ungulates. South American

hypothermia is that amazing connecting link that cannot be

placed separately in any of the existing squads. Zeuglodon and

squalodon - connecting links between those living in the water and all others

geographical distribution of animals. The fauna of South America includes

forms not found in North America (monkeys, llamas, sloths, anteaters,

armadillos). However, in his opinion, the similarity of the faunas of both continents was

place in past geological eras. Subsequently, faunas became isolated

South and North America due to the appearance of a barrier (plateau) in the southern part of Mexico.

Darwin collected particularly interesting data on the Galapagos Islands,

lying 950 km from West Coast South America in the Pacific Ocean. These

the islands are of volcanic origin, young geologically, then

there arose later than the American continent. Studying the endemic species living there

forms of turtles, finches, etc., he noted that the fauna of this archipelago is similar

with the fauna of South America, but at the same time different from it.

Darwin shows the American origin of the Galapagos fauna. He

noted that each island of this archipelago has its own form of finches.

But they all form one natural group and originate from one

the original species that lived on the nearby American continent.

So, at the beginning of the 19th century, based on extensive factual material, there were

some important generalizations were made: about the variability of species, about natural

groups of organisms, the unity of the structural plan of organisms, the change of forms and

increase in successive geological horizons of similarity in structure

extinct forms with modern ones, about the historical development of the earth’s crust, as well as

about the similarity of embryos of systematically distant groups of animals.

Thus, the doctrine of the evolution of the organic world is the largest

generalization of natural science of the 19th century - was prepared as by the previous

the development of scientific thought and socio-economic conditions.

In Darwin's evolutionary theory, problems such as:

The problem of transforming one organic form into another.

The problem of the purposiveness of organic beings

The problem of driving forces and factors of evolution.

Darwin's theory of evolution was one of the first successful examples

solving important problems in the development of wildlife from the perspective

natural historical materialism. She had a huge impact on everything

biological sciences, establishing an understanding of living nature and giving

materialistic explanation of the phenomena of expediency.

The positive side of Darwin's theory is its close connection with

selection practice, which served as the basis for the construction

evolutionary theory. To analyze the process of evolution of the organic world

Darwin not only used these practices, but also critically revised his

conclusions taking into account advances in biology and agriculture. This answered

the generally accepted principle that practice is the main thing

criterion of truth, and led to a radical restructuring of the biological sciences and

solving many general biological problems.

III. Variability.

The starting point of Darwin's teaching is his assertion that there is

variability in nature.

Variability is the general property of organisms to acquire new characteristics of differences between individuals within a species.

It can be clearly seen in comparisons of many animal breeds and

varieties of plants bred by humans in different places around the world. So, in

There are 38 varieties of date palms in North Africa. Only on one

the island of Polynesia cultivates 24 forms of breadfruit and the same number of forms

bananas There are 63 varieties of bamboo grown in China. Within any animal species

and plants, and in culture - within any variety and breed there are no identical

Many gardeners recognize hyacinth and tulip varieties by their bulbs. This means that all animals and plants are different from their own kind, although to the untrained eye they seem the same. Based on these facts, Darwin concludes that animals and plants are inherent in variability.

Analyzing the material on the variability of animals, the scientist noticed that any change in living conditions is enough to cause variability. He distinguished two main forms of variability: group, or specific, and

individual, or uncertain.

With group, definite, but not hereditary variability, many individuals of a given breed or variety, under the influence of a specific cause, change in the same way. For example, the growth of organisms depends on the quantity of food, color - on its quality.

Individual, indeterminate, hereditary variability should be understood as those small differences by which individuals of the same species differ from each other. These are changes that result from

uncertain influence of living conditions on each individual, such

changes appear in animals of the same litter, in plants grown from seeds

one box. The uncertainty of these changes lies in the fact that under

Individuals change differently under the same conditions. Undefined

Darwin compares changes to a cold that affects different people

in different ways, causing either cough, rheumatism, or pneumonia in

depending on the state of the human body and his physique.

direction, transmits to the offspring the tendency to change further in the same

direction in the presence of conditions that caused this change. This is

so-called ongoing variability, which plays an important role in

evolutionary transformations.

While studying the manifestation of variability in plants and animals, Darwin noted a number of

important patterns in changes in various organs and their systems in the body.

One of these patterns is correlative, or correlative,

variability. Correlative variability is that change

one organ causes changes in others. An example of such variability would be

serve as a connection between the development of a functioning muscle and the formation of a ridge on the bone to which it is attached. Many wading birds have

correlation between neck length and limb length: birds with long necks have

and long limbs.

All organisms in nature have heredity. This property is expressed in the preservation and transmission of characteristics to offspring.

Darwin attached great importance to the presence of variability and heredity in nature. Variability and heredity combined with selection are a natural factor in evolution.

IV. Artificial selection.

Darwin described in detail the variety of breeds of domestic animals and analyzed their origins. He noted the diversity of cattle breeds, of which there are about 400. They differ from each other in a number of characteristics: color, body shape, degree of skeletal and muscle development, the presence and shape of horns. The scientist examined in detail the question of the origin of these breeds and came to the conclusion that all European breeds of cattle, despite the great differences between them, originated from two ancestors domesticated by humans.

Darwin paid much attention to the study of various varieties of cultivated plants. Thus, comparing various varieties of cabbage, he concluded that they were all bred by humans from one wild species.

Thus, it has been shown that in the process of domestication a person can

bring about great changes in plants and animals. However, breeds and varieties

created by man are characterized by one feature: despite the fact that

that variability affects all organs of animals and plants, domestic breeds

differ in those characteristics that are especially valued by humans. So,

for example, cabbage varieties bred by a breeder rarely differ in shape

leaves, but their flowers and seeds remain similar. In ornamental plants,

for example, different varieties of pansies produce a variety of flowers, and their

the leaves are almost the same. Gooseberry varieties have a variety of fruits, and leaves

almost no difference. New varieties and breeds have been improved, improved, but

their perfection lies only in the fact that they meet the needs

person. For example, quickly fattening pigs are quite satisfying for humans, but

in conditions wildlife they could not protect themselves from enemies and find

sufficient amount of feed. These examples show that man himself creates

the breeds and varieties he needs.

Darwin noticed that in all cases the breeders used the same technique. When breeding animals or plants, they left for reproduction only the specimens that best suited their needs, and from generation to generation they accumulated changes beneficial to humans. This method of obtaining breeds and varieties is called artificial selection.

Darwin distinguishes two types of artificial selection - methodical, or

conscious and unconscious selection. The essence of methodological selection

is as follows: when starting work, the breeder sets himself

a specific task in relation to those characteristics that he wants to develop in

of this breed. First of all, these characteristics must be economically valuable, and

some of them must satisfy human aesthetic needs.

The characters that breeders work with can be both morphological and

functional. These may include the nature of animal behavior,

for example, pugnacity in fighting cocks. Solving the task set before oneself

task, the breeder selects from the existing material all the best in which

signs of interest to him appear, at least to a small extent. Selected

The breeder selects pairs for crossing. After this, starting from the first

generation, he conducts a strict selection best material and culling that

which does not meet the requirements.

Thus, methodological selection is a creative process leading to

formation of new breeds and varieties. Using this method, the breeder, as

the sculptor sculpts new organic forms according to a pre-thought-out plan.

The success of artificial selection depends on the degree of variability of the original form: the more the characteristics change, the easier it is to find the desired changes. The size of the initial batch is also of considerable importance: in a large batch, large

possibilities of choice. The preservation of selected material is facilitated by the elimination

crossing with other forms, that is, isolation and accumulative action

selection, in other words, the strengthening of desired characteristics in generations due to

selection in the same direction. Darwin noted that this is the strengthening of new

characteristics is achieved in the process of divergence, that is, evasion from

original form.

Unconscious selection is made by a person without a specific, predetermined

assigned task. Darwin showed that such selection actually has

place. So, for example, a peasant who has two cows, wanting to use one

of them for meat, he will slaughter the one that gives less milk; from chickens he uses

for the meat of the worst laying hens. In both cases, the peasant, while retaining the most

productive animals, makes directed selection, although it does not put

aims to develop new breeds. It is precisely this primitive form of selection that Darwin calls unconscious selection.

During his travels, studying the life of the peoples of South Africa and Australia, Darwin became convinced that these peoples also use unconscious selection. Obviously, unconscious selection has long been carried out by humans during the domestication of wild animals. All this made it possible to draw an important conclusion that in agricultural practice, new forms of animals and plants are always obtained only through selection. Consequently, in the doctrine of artificial selection, Charles Darwin discovered the law that governs the process of breeding new breeds of animals and plant varieties.

Despite the fact that methodical selection is a more progressive form, in his teaching Darwin attaches special importance to unconscious selection. According to him

In my opinion, unconscious selection is a “bridge” between artificial and natural selection. With unconscious selection, a person does not set himself the goal of breeding a new breed and acts in relation to the result obtained only as a blind selecting factor, like any other environmental factor.

Darwin indicated the conditions favorable to artificial selection: a high degree of variability of organisms, a large number of individuals subjected to selection, the skill of the breeder, the elimination of random individuals, a fairly high value of these animals or plants for humans.

V. Natural selection.

Natural selection is a process leading to the survival and preferential reproduction of individuals more adapted to given environmental conditions and possessing useful hereditary characteristics. The main material for it is random hereditary changes - mutations and their combinations.

Having analyzed the individual variability that exists in nature, and then proved the presence in nature of other factors that determine the possibility of evolution: the presence of a selecting factor, Darwin assigns the role of a selecting factor to natural selection, which is based on driving selection, stabilizing selection, disruptive selection and the struggle for existence , arising as a result of the enormous intensity of reproduction of organisms, leading to overpopulation.

A special case of natural selection is sexual selection, which is not associated with the survival of a given individual, but only with its reproductive function, that is, with reproduction. Sexual selection acts on characters associated with various aspects of this essential function.

Fig. 1 A - driving (leading) selection; K - stabilizing (centripetal, normalizing) selection; B - destabilizing (centrifugal) selection: D - disruptive (tearing, crushing) selection. The x-axis is the dimensional values ​​of one trait in populations; the y-axis is the number of individuals in populations. M is the average value of the trait for a given population. The arrows indicate the direction of the selection pressure. I, II, III - a picture of variability in successive slices of time, separated by generations from previous ones

1. Driving selection.

Natural selection always leads to an increase in the average fitness of populations. Changes in external conditions can lead to changes in the fitness of individual genotypes. In response to these changes, natural selection, using the huge reservoir of genetic diversity across many different signs, leads to significant shifts in the genetic structure of the population. If the external environment is constantly changing in a certain direction, then natural selection changes the genetic structure of the population in such a way that its fitness in these changing conditions remains maximum. At the same time, the frequencies of individual alleles in the population change. The average values ​​of adaptive traits in populations also change. In a series of generations, their gradual shift in a certain direction can be traced. This form of selection is called driving selection.

A classic example of driving selection is the evolution of color in the birch moth. The color of the wings of this butterfly imitates the color of the lichen-covered bark of trees on which it spends the daylight hours. Obviously, such a protective coloration was formed over many generations of previous evolution. However, with the beginning of the industrial revolution in England, this device began to lose its importance. Atmospheric pollution has led to massive death of lichens and darkening of tree trunks. Light butterflies against a dark background became easily visible to birds. Beginning in the mid-19th century, mutant dark (melanistic) forms of butterflies began to appear in birch moth populations. Their frequency increased rapidly. By the end of the 19th century, some urban populations of the birch moth consisted almost entirely of dark forms, while rural populations continued to be dominated by light forms. This phenomenon was called industrial melanism. Scientists have found that in polluted areas, birds are more likely to eat light-colored forms, and in clean areas, dark ones. The introduction of air pollution restrictions in the 1950s caused natural selection to reverse course again, and the frequency of dark forms in urban populations began to decline.

The driving form of natural selection plays a decisive role in the adaptation of living organisms to external conditions that change over time.

Fig.2 Dependence of the frequency of dark forms of birch

moths from air pollution

2. Stabilizing selection.

Under stable conditions of existence, natural selection continues to act in the form of stabilizing selection.

Stabilizing selection preserves the state of the population that ensures its maximum fitness under constant conditions of existence. In each generation, individuals deviating from the average are removed optimal value according to adaptive characteristics.

Many examples of the action of stabilizing selection in nature have been described. For example, at first glance it seems that the greatest contribution to the gene pool of the next generation should be made by individuals with maximum fertility. However, observations of natural populations of birds and mammals show that this is not the case. The more chicks or cubs in the nest, the more difficult it is to feed them, the smaller and weaker each of them is. As a result, individuals with average fertility are the most fit.

Selection toward the mean has been found for a variety of traits. In mammals, very low- and very-high-weight newborns are more likely to die at birth or in the first weeks of life than average-weight newborns. A study of the size of the wings of birds that died after the storm showed that most of them had wings that were too small or too large. And in this case, the average individuals turned out to be the most adapted.

The reason for the constant appearance of poorly adapted forms under constant conditions of existence is that heterozygous genotypes are often the most fit. When crossed, they constantly split and their offspring produce homozygous offspring with reduced fitness. This phenomenon is called balanced polymorphism.

Stabilizing selection is a mechanism for the accumulation of variability in natural populations. Even in stable conditions of existence, neither natural selection nor evolution ceases. Remaining phenotypically unchanged, the population does not stop evolving. Its genetic makeup is constantly changing. Stabilizing selection creates genetic systems that ensure the formation of similar optimal phenotypes on the basis of a wide variety of genotypes. Such genetic mechanisms as dominance, epistasis, complementary action of genes, incomplete penetrance and other means of hiding genetic variability owe their existence to stabilizing selection.

The constancy of conditions does not mean their immutability. Environmental conditions change regularly throughout the year. Stabilizing selection adapts populations to these seasonal changes. Reproduction cycles are timed to coincide with them, so that young animals are born at that season of the year when food resources are maximum. All deviations from this optimal cycle, which is reproduced from year to year, are eliminated by stabilizing selection. Descendants born too early die from lack of food; offspring born too late do not have time to prepare for winter.

Thus, stabilizing selection, sweeping aside deviations from the norm, actively shapes genetic mechanisms that ensure the stable development of organisms and the formation of optimal phenotypes based on various genotypes. It ensures the sustainable functioning of organisms in wide range external conditions familiar to the type of fluctuations.

Disruptive (disruptive) selection is a form of natural selection in which conditions favor two or more extreme variants (directions) of variability, but do not favor the intermediate, average state of a trait. As a result, several new forms may appear from one original one. Darwin described the action of disruptive selection, believing that it underlies divergence, although he could not provide evidence of its existence in nature. Disruptive selection contributes to the emergence and maintenance of population polymorphism, and in some cases can cause speciation.

One of the possible situations in nature in which disruptive selection comes into play is when a polymorphic population occupies a heterogeneous habitat. At the same time, different forms adapt to different ecological niches or subniches.

An example of disruptive selection is the formation of two races in the greater rattle in hay meadows. Under normal conditions, the flowering and seed ripening periods of this plant cover the entire summer. But in hay meadows, seeds are produced mainly by those plants that manage to bloom and ripen either before the mowing period, or bloom at the end of summer, after mowing. As a result, two races of rattle are formed - early and late flowering.

4. Sexual selection.

In nature there are often signs that may seem at first

look inappropriate, for example, bright colors and loud voices in birds, which

reveals their presence. This seems to be a contradiction to the "expected" results.

Natural selection is explained by Darwin's theory of sexual selection. Such

the form of selection, according to Darwin, is determined by the struggle between individuals of the same

sex, usually males, for the possession of individuals of the other sex. Hence,

sexual selection is a special case of intraspecific natural selection in

breeding season.

Darwin distinguishes two types of sexual selection. In the first case, there is a struggle between the males, in the second, the females are active, and the males only compete with each other in order to excite the females, who choose the most attractive males. The results of both types of sexual selection differ. With the first form of selection, strong and healthy offspring appear, well-armed males (the appearance of spurs, horns). In the second, such secondary sexual characteristics as the brightness of plumage, the characteristics of mating songs, and the smell emitted by the male, which serves to attract a female, are enhanced. Despite the seeming inappropriateness of the traits, since they attract predators, such a male has an increased chance of leaving offspring, which turns out to be beneficial for the species as a whole. The most important result of sexual selection is the appearance of secondary sexual characteristics and associated sexual dimorphism.

In different circumstances, natural selection can proceed with different

intensity. Darwin notes circumstances favorable

natural selection:

Quite a high frequency of manifestations of uncertain

hereditary changes.

· Numerous individuals of a species, increasing the likelihood

manifestations of beneficial changes.

· Unrelated crossbreeding, increasing the range

variability in offspring. Darwin notes that cross-pollination

It is found occasionally even among self-pollinating plants.

· Isolation of a group of individuals, preventing them from interbreeding with

the rest of the organisms in this population.

Wide distribution of the species, since at the same time

within the boundaries of their range, individuals encounter different conditions, and natural

selection will go in different directions and increase intraspecific

diversity.

Along with these circumstances, the main condition for the success of natural selection is its accumulative action, which is the basis of its

creative species-forming activity.

5. The struggle for existence.

The most important place in the theory of natural selection is occupied by the concept of the struggle for existence. According to Darwin, the struggle for existence is the result of the tendency of organisms of any species to multiply without limits.

A predator, in order to live, must eat, and herbivores serve as food for it. A herbivore eats many thousands of meadow plants to live. Plants are destroyed by insects. Insects are food for insectivorous birds, which in turn are exterminated by birds of prey. Darwin called these complex relationships the struggle for existence.

The term "struggle for existence" is not entirely accurate

corresponds to the meaning that Darwin himself put into it, proposing

understand this term "in a broad and metaphorical sense." First, Darwin

included in the concept of “existence” not only the life of a given individual, but also its success

in leaving offspring. Secondly, the word “struggle” did not mean so much

struggle, as such, as much as competition, often taking place in a passive

form. Darwin understood the struggle for existence as the totality of all complex

relationships between the organism and the external environment that determine success or

the failure of a given individual to survive and leave offspring.

The struggle for existence takes many different forms. This is, firstly,

direct destruction of one individual by another, secondly, widely

widespread competition in the struggle for light, moisture, food and space on earth.

A plant that is stunted in growth is crowded out by other plants, the lack of light depresses it even more, and finally it dies. Various manifestations

Darwin reduced the struggle for existence to three types: interspecific, intraspecific

and combating inorganic conditions external environment.

Examples of interspecies struggle are numerous. These are the relationships between predator and prey, herbivores and plants, insects and insectivorous birds; This is a competitive struggle between cultivated plants and weeds, between trees of different species in the forest and between grasses in the meadow. This also includes the phenomenon of antagonism between different types microorganisms.

Since by the struggle for existence Darwin understood the dependence of the organism on the physical factors of the external environment and other living beings, as well as the success of the individual “in providing itself with offspring,” then in his book “The Origin of Species” he also considers intraspecific relations as one of the main types of struggle for existence.

Emphasizing the role of overpopulation as a factor in the struggle for

existence, Darwin concluded that the most fierce must be

intraspecific struggle, as competition between individuals of the same species that

have similar life needs. In addition, he analyzed

relationships between individuals of close and distant species. Individuals of distant species

usually have different needs. Sometimes their needs are partially

coincide, and then a competitive struggle arises between them for certain

living conditions. On the contrary, in individuals of closely related species, and especially in the same species,

almost all needs coincide, so there is competition between them

becomes especially acute.

The conditions of the inorganic external environment play a huge role in the process of elimination of individuals in the plant and animal world. Darwin gives an example when, during a severe winter in the area where he lived, 80% of the birds died. Many plants are destroyed almost every year by late frosts, drought, and sharp climatic fluctuations. With a lack of oxygen dissolved in water, fish die in water bodies. A significant mass of seeds is lost, blown by the wind in unfavorable conditions.

Overpopulation is a necessary prerequisite for the emergence of a struggle for

existence. However, the most common cause of the struggle for existence is

the relative adaptability of organisms to their environment. This

explained by the fact that physico-chemical and biotic (created by ourselves)

organisms) environmental conditions always fluctuate, change in one way or another

direction. Environmental factors such as the amount of food, moisture,

are changing. Death of organisms due to lack necessary conditions for life

usually in nature, and they constantly "fight" with unfavorable conditions

environment.

The struggle for existence leads to the death of organisms or a decrease in

fertility, which is the same thing in evolutionary terms.

adapted to life in the intestines of the host. Or this example: the majority

insects have wings and fly from flower to flower. However, there are also

wingless forms that are forced to crawl from plant to plant in search of food

plant. It would seem that winged insects should win the fight for

existence of wingless forms, however, on oceanic islands

wingless forms predominate, since the winged ones are carried into the ocean and die.

Consequently, as a result of natural selection, the species that are most

adapted to the specific environmental conditions in which they take place

life. Due to the different adaptability of old and new forms, the struggle for existence leads certain forms to elimination. As a rule, organisms that have become intermediate during the divergence process are eliminated. Intermediate forms find themselves in conditions of intense competition. This means that monotony, which increases competition, is harmful, and evading forms find themselves in a more advantageous position and their numbers increase. The process of divergence occurs in nature constantly. As a result, new varieties are formed, and such separation of varieties ultimately leads to the emergence of new species.

VI. The meaning of Darwin's theory of evolution.

Darwin was the first in the history of biology to develop the theory of evolution. This was of great methodological importance and made it possible not only to substantiate the idea of ​​organic evolution clearly and convincingly for contemporaries, but also to test the validity of the theory of evolution itself. This was a decisive phase in one of the greatest conceptual revolutions in natural science. The most important thing in this revolution was the replacement of the theological idea of ​​evolution as the idea of ​​primordial purposiveness with the model of natural selection. Despite fierce criticism, Darwin's theory quickly gained recognition due to the fact that the concept of the historical development of living nature explained the observed facts better than the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe immutability of species.

To substantiate his theory, Darwin, unlike his predecessors, attracted great amount facts available to him from a variety of areas. The highlighting of biotic relationships and their population-evolutionary interpretation was the most important innovation of Darwin's concept of evolution and gives the right to the conclusion that Darwin created his own concept of the struggle for existence, fundamentally different from the ideas of his predecessors.

Darwin revealed the driving forces of organic evolution. Further development biology deepened and complemented his ideas, which served as the basis for modern Darwinism. In all biological disciplines, the leading place is now occupied by the historical method of research, which makes it possible to study specific paths of evolution of organisms and deeply penetrate into the essence of biological phenomena.

Conclusion.

Darwin developed a coherent and comprehensive concept of the formation of species, laying the foundation for a strict scientific approach to the study of the problem of species and speciation.

He was convinced of the divine creation of nature, but considered it necessary for the development of human knowledge to conduct a deep scientific analysis of the problems of evolution. In his opinion, only through understanding the specific causes and mechanisms of evolutionary transformations of organisms can we move on to solving more fundamental problems of the evolution of nature and the world. Therefore, Darwin consciously distinguished between scientific and religious-philosophical aspects of the development of the world and made a grandiose attempt to create a purely scientific theory organic evolution.

Darwin proposed a coherent theory of the emergence and development of new species and thereby established an evolutionary approach in biology. As a result, evolutionary thinking was formed not only in biology, but also in science as a whole. Evolutionary theory became the axis or synthetic center of development of biology and other scientific disciplines. This is its absolute significance for the development of science.

From its inception to the present day, Darwin's theory has caused a lot of controversy and disagreement. There are a variety of views regarding it - from widespread acceptance to complete denial. There have been especially many critical comments addressed to it recently due to the fact that modern evolutionary theory, based on Darwin’s ideas, cannot solve a number of issues that are of fundamental importance for understanding the mechanisms of the development of nature. In particular, the problem of the qualitative uniqueness of the species and the qualitative features of the process of speciation, which has been in the center of attention since the time of Darwin, has not yet been solved.

Nevertheless, the development of evolutionary theory steadily confirms the correctness of the basic tenets of Darwinism. It becomes obvious that the difficulties faced by the theory of evolution are not due to Darwin’s erroneous views, but to insufficient knowledge of the mechanisms of evolutionary transformations of organisms in modern biology. The results of evolutionary research, as well as historical analysis of the formation of Darwin's original theory, reveal the deep logic, accuracy and genius of his theoretical constructions. In the light of modern data, Darwin's theory represents a gigantic evolutionary synthesis that was significantly ahead of the level of scientific knowledge of its time. It has not been surpassed to this day. Therefore, Darwin’s teachings should be considered not as some kind of outdated system of views, but as a modern and relevant concept, a careful study of which helps to better understand the patterns of evolution of organisms and choose the right paths for further research.

Bibliography.

1. V.A.Berdnikov. Evolution and progress. Novosibirsk, “Science”, 1991.

2. Darwin Ch. Origin of species by natural selection. -L.: Science, 1991,

3. N.N. Jordansky. Basics of the theory of evolution. M., “Enlightenment”, 1979.

4. A.V.Yablokov, B.M.Mednikov. Charles Darwin. Origin of Species by

natural selection. M., "Enlightenment", 1987.

The construction of the most fundamental evolutionary concept is associated with the name of the brilliant English scientist Charles Darwin (1809–1882). What he accomplished in 1831–1836 was of great importance for the development of Charles Darwin’s evolutionary and atheistic views. circumnavigation of the world on the Beagle. He explored the geological structure, flora and fauna of many countries, and sent a huge number of collections from England. Having compared the found remains of plants and animals with modern ones, Charles Darwin made an assumption about the historical, evolutionary relationship. On the Galapagos Islands, he found species of lizards, turtles, and birds that were not found anywhere else. The Galapagos Islands are islands of volcanic origin, so Charles Darwin suggested that these animals came to them from the mainland and gradually changed. In Australia, he became interested in marsupials and oviparous animals, which became extinct in other parts of the globe. So gradually the scientist’s conviction in . After returning from his trip, Darwin worked hard for 20 years to create the doctrine of evolution and collected additional facts about the development of new breeds of animals and plant varieties in agriculture. he considered it as a unique model of natural selection. His works “The Origin of Species by Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Breeds in the Struggle for Life”, “Change in Domestic Animals and Cultivated Plants”, “The Origin of Man and Sexual Selection” were published.

The main merit of Charles Darwin is that he revealed the mechanisms of formation and formation of species, that is, he explained the mechanism of evolution. He made his conclusions on the basis of a large amount of data accumulated by that time in the field of natural science, animal husbandry and crop production practices. The first possible conclusion drawn by Darwin was the conclusion that it exists in nature. This conclusion was made on the basis of the fact that out of a huge number of individuals born, only a few survive to adulthood, therefore, according to Darwin, the rest die in the struggle for life. The second conclusion was the conclusion that for organisms of character there is universal variability in characteristics and properties (even in the offspring of one pair of parents there are no identical individuals). Under fairly stable conditions, these small differences may not matter. However, when sudden changes conditions of existence, one or more distinctive features may be decisive for survival. Having compared the facts of the struggle for the existence of the universal variability of organisms, Darwin makes a generalized conclusion about the existence of “natural selection” in nature (the selective survival of some individuals and the death of other individuals). The material for natural selection is supplied by the variability of organisms (mutational and combinative). The result of natural selection is the formation of a large number of adaptations to specific living conditions, which we consider from a taxometric point of view - we combine them into similar organisms into species, genera, and families.

The main provisions of the evolutionary teachings of Charles Darwin boil down to the following:

The diversity of animal and plant species is the result of the historical development of the organic world.
The main driving forces of evolution are the struggle for existence and natural selection. The material for natural selection is provided by hereditary variability. The stability of the species is ensured by heredity.
The organic world mainly followed the path of complicating the organization of living beings.
is the result of natural selection.
Both favorable and unfavorable changes can be inherited.
The variety of modern breeds of domestic animals and varieties of agricultural plants is the result of action.
associated with the historical development of ancient apes.
Charles Darwin's teaching can be considered as a revolution in the field of natural science. The significance of evolutionary theory is as follows:

The patterns of transformation of one organic form into another have been revealed.
The reasons for the expediency of organic forms are explained.
The law of natural selection was discovered.
The essence of artificial selection has been clarified.
The driving forces of evolution have been identified.