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The Theory of Evolution
Introduction
In biology, the continual process by which one form of life changes or evolves into another form.
The theory of evolution suggests that all plants and animals descended from one or several kinds
of simple organisms. It also explains why there are so many different kinds of plants and animals.
The inherent characteristics of nearly all living things change from generation to generation.
Eventually the accumulating changes may become so great that the descendant bears little
likeness to it's remote ancestor and may belong to a different species.
Evolution takes place by means of natural selection, mutation and sexual recombination.
Darwinism may be defined as the doctrine of natural selection or the survival of the fitttest as put
forward by Charles Darwin in The Origin of Species, published in 1859. Popularly it is usually regarded
as equivalent to the theory of evolution, often considered only in it's application to one organism - man.
When the theory of evolution first came to public attention in 1859 it was met with a storm of protest
and ridicule. Some people, misinterpreting the theory, thought it claimed that man was descended
from apes. Actually, the theory states that man and apes had a common ancestor that was neither
man nor ape.)
Approximately 5 million years ago, the human line and the ape line shared a common ancestor having
more or less of a monkey-like nature from which the apes went on their separate way, leading to modern
gorillas, chimps and orang-utans, and the hominid line ( refers to the human family) went on in another
direction, producing the Australopithecus - line diverges into sub-lines, one of which will eventually give
rise to Homo sapiens (modern man)
Man in virtue of his faculty of speech is the highest member of the anthropoids, his nearest of kin being
the gorilla, chimpanzee, orang and gibbon. From a zoological standpoint man differs from the anthropoid
apes in 1) his adaptation to the erect position and the terrestrial habitat, in 2) his greater brain development
and in 3) the very fully developed social instinct.