Introduction to Evolution课件.ppt

Evidence for Evolution Reading: Freeman, Chapter 23, 26 The Fact of Evolution Evolution-the progressive change of organisms as they descend from ancestral species-is a fact. By now, the evidence for it is overwhelming and ubiquitous. It is of such obvious clinical significance in medicine that to deny it is irresponsible. That said, any explanation for its existence and mode of action is a scientific theory, which must be testable and, in theory, falsifiable. Darwin’s theory of natural selection, combined with other mechanisms of evolution discovered since Darwin, form what is known as the “modern synthesis”, the current scientific paradigm in the biological sciences. It provides a central explanation for phenomena in such diverse fields as paleontology and developmental biology, medicine and psychology. The existence of evolution has been proposed several times in history. For instance, the ancient Greek scientist, Animaxander, proposed a theory of evolution. In terms of modern science, it was first advanced proposed in the late 1700’s and early 1800s by several scientists including Compte de Buffon and Erasmus Darwin. The idea of evolution remained controversial for a long time, partially because it ran contrary to contemporary religious ideas and partially because no mechanism for evolution was known. Darwin and Wallace’s theory of evolution by natural selection was the first plausible, widely-accepted mechanism for evolutionary change. By now it is well-tested, supported by hundreds of independent scientific investigations. It is also falsifiable-aspects of Darwin’s theory of evolution have been successfully challenged, others supported. This is the case for the other mechanisms of evolution as well. Examples of the clinical significance of evolutionary biology to medicine HIV. HIV is a retrovirus of enormous medical concern. Because of evolutionary studies, we know that two separate lineages of this retrovirus passed into the human population from Africa