Evolutionary theory: past, present, and future

Abstract

Abstract Evolutionism, the world view that considers constant change a central process of nature, emerged in Greek philosophy in its attempt to explain the origin and structure of the physical and organic worlds (Russell, 1949). However, evolutionary biological thinking appeared only in the 18th century, following the great geographical discoveries (Eisley, 1958), replacing the static world view of creationism and species permanency. Evolutionary theory has been crystallized in the early to mid-19th century, first genuinely proposed by Lamarck (1809), and formalized by Darwin (1859) in the Origin of Species. Darwin proposed that natural selection between individuals is the mechanism of evolution rather than by the individuals’ direct perfection, as suggested by Lamarck. Darwinian evolutionism introduced the idea of individual variation as central to the process of environmental selection. Darwinism holds that organic evolutionary change from a common descent with gradual modification results from the interplay between variation and natural selection through differential survival and reproduction of individual variants. Since the theory was propounded by Darwin, it has been modified and explicated by the science of genetics. The fruitful interdisciplinary link between Darwinism and Mendelism provided the organizing principle of biology (Lewontin, 1974).