Evolutionary teaching. Its development from ancient times to the present

Evolutionary teaching is the sum of all ideas about laws, mechanisms of changes occurring in organic nature. According to him, all the types of organisms that exist now have descended from their distant "relatives" through a prolonged change. It deals with the analysis of how the development of individual organisms (ontogeny) takes place, considers the ways of development of integral groups of organisms (phylogenesis) and their adaptation.

Evolutionary teaching with its roots goes back to ancient times, where natural scientists, philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome (Aristotle, Democritus, Anaxagoras ...) expressed their assumptions about the development and transformation of organisms. However, these conclusions were not based on scientific knowledge and were of the nature of purely guesswork. In the Middle Ages in the development of this teaching was stagnation. This was due to the dominance of religious dogmas and scholasticism. So, in the Christian world for a long time the creationist point of view was leading. Despite this, some scientists expressed their opinion about the existence of monsters, as evidenced by the findings of fossil remains.

In the process of accumulation of facts in the 18th century a new direction appeared - transformism, within the framework of which the variability of species was studied. Representatives of the teachings were such scientists as J. Beuffoni, E. Darwin, E. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. Their evolutionary doctrine in the form of evidence had two facts: the existence of transitional interspecific forms, the similarity of the structure of animals and plants in the same group. However, none of these figures spoke about the reasons for the changes.

And only in 1809 appeared the evolutionary doctrine of Lamarck, which was Is reflected in the book "The Philosophy of Zoology". Here, for the first time, the question of the causes of changes in species was raised. He believed that because of the changing environment, the species themselves are changing. Moreover, he introduced gradations, i.e. Transitions from lower forms to higher ones. This evolutionary development, according to Lamarck, is inherent in all living things and proceeds from the pursuit of perfection.

Observations of the world of nature led him to two main points, which were reflected in the law of "non-exercises - exercises." According to him, the organs develop as they are used, after which the "inheritance of favorable properties" took place, i.e. Favorable signs passed on from generation to generation and in the future either their development continued, or they disappeared. However, Lamarck's work was not appreciated in the scientific world until the publication of Charles Darwin's book On the Origin of Species. The arguments given in it in favor of evolutionary development made it very popular. However, this scientist also advocated the inheritance of acquired characteristics. However, the contradictions discovered were so serious that they contributed to the revival of Lamarckism as neo-Lamarckism.

After much time, the research of biologists led to the emergence of a synthetic evolutionary theory. (STE). It does not have a clear date for the emergence and a certain author and is a collective work of scientists. Despite the fact that the authors had a lot of discrepancies in views, some provisions were not in doubt: the elementary unit of evolution is represented by a local population; Material for evolutionary development is recombination and mutational variability; The main reason for the development of adaptations is natural selection; Neutral signs are formed due to gene drift and some other positions.

Currently, a large number of scientists use the term "modern evolutionary theory". It does not require the presence of one concept of evolution, and at the same time its main achievement is the fact that the saltation changes alternate with the gradual ones.