Biophilosophical Implications of Inorganic and Organismic Evolution. Bernhard Rensch

1986 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 612-612
Author(s):  
Ernst Mayr
Keyword(s):  
Organismic Evolution

scholarly journals The meaning of absence: the primate tree that did not make it into Darwin's The Descent of Man

BJHS Themes ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Marianne Sommer
Keyword(s):  
Human Populations ◽  
Ernst Haeckel ◽  
Species Status ◽  
Tree Diagram ◽  
Organismic Evolution ◽  
Racial Hierarchies ◽  
Descent Of Man ◽  
Human Phylogeny

Abstract This paper engages with a specific image: Darwin's tree of the primates. Although this diagram was sketched in ink on paper in 1868, it did not make it into the publication of The Descent of Man (1871). This may seem all the more in need of an explanation because, as Adrian Desmond and James Moore have shown, Darwin strongly relied on the notion of familial genealogy in the development of his theory of organismic evolution, or rather descent. However, Darwin expressed scepticism towards visualizations of phylogenies in correspondence with Ernst Haeckel and in fact also in Descent, considering such representations at once too speculative and too concrete. An abstraction such as a tree diagram left little room to ponder possibilities or demarcate hypotheses from evidence. I thus bring Darwin's primate tree into communication with his view on primate and human phylogeny as formulated in Descent, including his rejection of polygenism. I argue that considering the tree's inherent teleology, as well as its power to suggest species status of human populations and to reify ‘racial’ hierarchies, the absence of the diagram in The Descent of Man may be a significant statement.

Organismic Evolution: The Interaction of Microevolutionary and Macroevolutionary Processes

1986 ◽  
pp. 166-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. S. Levinton ◽  
K. Bandel ◽  
B. Charlesworth ◽  
G. Müller ◽  
W. Nagl ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Organismic Evolution

scholarly journals Paleontology: advancing China's international leadership

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 171-176
Author(s):  
Hepeng Jia
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Associate Editor ◽  
Leadership Role ◽  
State University ◽  
National Academy Of Sciences ◽  
Chinese Academy Of Sciences ◽  
The Status ◽  
Organismic Evolution ◽  
Academy Of Sciences ◽  
Robust Evidence

Abstract In recent years, Chinese scientists have achieved significant progress in paleontological discoveries and scientific studies. Series of studies published in top journals, such as Science, Nature and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), have astonished the world by presenting beautiful fossils that furnish robust evidence to enrich the understanding of organismic evolution, major extinctions and stratigraphy. It has been portrayed as the heyday in the paleontology of China. What is the status of the field? What factors have caused the avalanche of fossil discoveries in China? What implications can these new discoveries provide for our understanding of current evolution theories? How, given their significant contribution to the world's paleontology scholarship, can Chinese scientists play a due leadership role in the field? At an online forum organized by the National Science Review (NSR), its associate editor-in-chief, Zhonghe Zhou, asked four scientists in the field as well as NSR executive editor-in-chief Mu-ming Poo to join the discussion. Jin Meng Paleobiologist at American Museum of Natural History Mu-ming Poo Neurobiologist at Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences Shuzhong Shen Stratigrapher at Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences Shuhai Xiao Paleobiologist and geobiologist at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Zhonghe Zhou (Chair) Paleobiologist at Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP), Chinese Academy of Sciences

Organismic Evolution.

Brittonia ◽  
1978 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 101
Author(s):  
Karl J. Niklas ◽  
Verne Grant
Keyword(s):  
Organismic Evolution

scholarly journals Interspecific sexual selection, a new theory for an old practice: the increase of artificial biodiversity through creation of modern, standardized breeds

2021 ◽  
pp. 109-115
Author(s):  
J. J. Negro ◽  
M. C. Blázquez ◽  
R. Fernández-Alés ◽  
A. Martín-Vicente
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Genetic Disorders ◽  
Local Conditions ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
Single Person ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Breeding Programmes ◽  
Organismic Evolution ◽  
Close Relatives ◽  
The 19Th Century

Darwin set the pillars of organismic evolution when he defined natural and sexual selection in the 19th century. Concurrently, a frenzy of selective breeding programmes, generally supported by the wealthy and aristocratic, gave rise to novel breeds of plants and animals at a rate that was previously unforeseen. Since then, breeds selected over millennia and adapted to local conditions began to disappear or were threatened with extinction, being substituted by these new, standardized breeds. It is of interest to explore how new breeds emerged and what the main criteria of the founders of these breeds were. Darwin seemed to be unaware that his contemporaries were practicing a form of interspecific sexual selection responsible for the fixation of exaggerated traits, often plainly ornamental, in the new breeds they intended to create. Parent animals were chosen by individuals who were following particular goals, often with aesthetic criteria in mind. Here we investigated who were the founders of modern breeds in five domesticated species (dogs, cats, pigs, horses and cattle), as very often a single person is credited with the creation of a breed. We found information on founders of 459 breeds, 270 of which were created after 1800. Interestingly, for these species, breed creation is overwhelmingly attributed to men. In the wild, however, the choice of mate is usually performed by the female of a species and thought to be adaptive. Breeders in the Victorian era, nevertheless, lacked such adaptive skills and had little scientific knowledge. The selection of individuals with an extreme expression of the desired traits were often close relatives, resulting in high inbreeding and a variety of genetic disorders.

scholarly journals Eukaryotic genome evolution: rearrangement and coevolution of compartmentalized genetic information

2003 ◽  
Vol 358 (1429) ◽  
pp. 87-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reinhold G. Herrmann ◽  
Rainer M. Maier ◽  
Christian Schmitz-Linneweber
Keyword(s):  
Nicotiana Tabacum ◽  
Gene Transfer ◽  
Genetic Information ◽  
Entire System ◽  
Atropa Belladonna ◽  
Closely Related Species ◽  
Photosynthetic Machinery ◽  
Organismic Evolution ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Multicellular Organisms

The plant cell operates with an integrated, compartmentalized genome consisting of nucleus/cytosol, plastids and mitochondria that, in its entirety, is regulated in time, quantitatively, in multicellular organisms and also in space. This genome, as do genomes of eukaryotes in general, originated in endosymbiotic events, with at least three cells, and was shaped phylogenetically by a massive and highly complex restructuring and intermixing of the genetic potentials of the symbiotic partners and by lateral gene transfer. This was accompanied by fundamental changes in expression signals in the entire system at almost all regulatory levels. The gross genome rearrangements contrast with a highly specific compartmental interplay, which becomes apparent in interspecific nuclear-plastid cybrids or hybrids. Organelle exchanges, even between closely related species, can greatly disturb the intracellular genetic balance (‘hybrid bleaching’), which is indicative of compartmental coevolution and is of relevance for speciation processes. The photosynthetic machinery of plastids, which is embedded in that genetic machinery, is an appealing model to probe into genomic and organismic evolution and to develop functional molecular genomics. We have studied the reciprocal Atropa belladonna-Nicotiana tabacum cybrids, which differ markedly in their phenotypes, and found that transcriptional and post-transcriptional processes can contribute to genome/plastome incompatibility. Allopolyploidy can influence this phenomenon by providing an increased, cryptic RNA editing potential and the capacity to maintain the integrity of organelles of different taxonomic origins.

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