Concept
Evolution
Overview
change in heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Evolution is discussed.
And so we find that while Evolution is a transformation of the homogeneous into the heterogeneous, and of the indefinite into the definite, it is also a transformation of the incoherent into the coherent. Along with the differentiation shown in increasing contrasts of parts with each other, there goes on an integration, by which the parts are rendered distinct units, as well as closely united components of one whole.
Herbert Spencer, First Principles
names the idea; a chapter is titled for it; states what it is; author linked in the graph; opens on it
Thus, the Lamarckian theory only explains the development of characters for which individuals strive, while the Darwinian theory only explains the production of characters really beneficial to the race, though these may be fatal to individuals.[55] But more broadly and philosophically conceived, Darwinian evolution is evolution by the operation of chance, and the destruction of bad results, while Lamarckian…
Charles S. Peirce, Chance, Love, and Logic
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
It shows that up to a certain period in its development the embryo of the bird is hardly distinguishable from that of the reptile, and that the individual develops, throughout the embryonic life in general, a series of transformations comparable to those through which, according to the theory of evolution, one species passes into another. A single cell, the result of the combination of two cells, male and female…
Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution
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The biologic induction must itself be interpreted. Only when the process of evolution of organisms is affiliated on the process of evolution in general, can it be truly said to be explained. The thing required is to show that its various results are corollaries from first principles. We have to reconcile the facts with the universal laws of the re-distribution of matter and motion.
Herbert Spencer, The Principles of Biology, Volume 1
names the idea; a chapter is titled for it; author linked in the graph; opens on it
Having got rid of the belief in chance and the disbelief in design, as in no sense appurtenances of Evolution, the third libel upon that doctrine, that it is anti-theistic, might perhaps be left to shift for itself. But the persistence with which many people refuse to draw the plainest consequences from the propositions they profess to accept, renders it advisable to remark that the doctrine of Evolution is neither…
Charles Darwin, Life and Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 1
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
Philosophers who discussed Evolution
- Friedrich Nietzsche
- Anaximander
- Henri Bergson
- James Mark Baldwin
- Julian Huxley
- Stephen Toulmin
- Karl Popper
- Seyyed Hossein Nasr
- William Whewell
- T. H. Green
- Francisco J. Ayala
- Sri Aurobindo
- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
- J. L. Mackie
- Herbert Spencer
- Richard Dawkins
- Philip Kitcher
- Aristotle
- Ferdinand Tönnies
- Lucretius
- Erich Fromm
- Charles Hartshorne
- Wilhelm Dilthey
- Arthur Schopenhauer
Related ideas
- Muqaddimah
- Fossil
- BBC News
- Anaximander
- Genetic engineering
- Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
- Phylogenetic tree
- Intelligent design
- National Science Foundation
- Habitat
- James Watson
- Antibiotic
- Fitness (biology)
- Middle Ages
- Materialism
- Molecule
- Pierre Louis Maupertuis
- Mutation
- Scientific theory
- Ibn Khaldun
- Hypothesis
- Natural selection
- Pseudoscience
- Religious text
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Agnosticism.