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Science and evolution

Evolution is both a fact and a theory. Evolution is widely observable in laboratory and natural populations as they change over time. The fact that we need annual flu vaccines is one example of observable evolution. At the same time, evolutionary theory explains more than observations, as the succes...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Russo, Claudia A.M., André, Thiago
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Sociedade Brasileira de Genética 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6428117/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30816905
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/1678-4685-GMB-2018-0086
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author Russo, Claudia A.M.
André, Thiago
author_facet Russo, Claudia A.M.
André, Thiago
author_sort Russo, Claudia A.M.
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description Evolution is both a fact and a theory. Evolution is widely observable in laboratory and natural populations as they change over time. The fact that we need annual flu vaccines is one example of observable evolution. At the same time, evolutionary theory explains more than observations, as the succession on the fossil record. Hence, evolution is also the scientific theory that embodies biology, including all organisms and their characteristics. In this paper, we emphasize why evolution is the most important theory in biology. Evolution explains every biological detail, similar to how history explains many aspects of a current political situation. Only evolution explains the patterns observed in the fossil record. Examples include the succession in the fossil record; we cannot find the easily fossilized mammals before 300 million years ago; after the extinction of the dinosaurs, the fossil record indicates that mammals and birds radiated throughout the planet. Additionally, the fact that we are able to construct fairly consistent phylogenetic trees using distinct genetic markers in the genome is only explained by evolutionary theory. Finally, we show that the processes that drive evolution, both on short and long time scales, are observable facts.
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spelling pubmed-64281172019-04-16 Science and evolution Russo, Claudia A.M. André, Thiago Genet Mol Biol Evolutionary Genetics Evolution is both a fact and a theory. Evolution is widely observable in laboratory and natural populations as they change over time. The fact that we need annual flu vaccines is one example of observable evolution. At the same time, evolutionary theory explains more than observations, as the succession on the fossil record. Hence, evolution is also the scientific theory that embodies biology, including all organisms and their characteristics. In this paper, we emphasize why evolution is the most important theory in biology. Evolution explains every biological detail, similar to how history explains many aspects of a current political situation. Only evolution explains the patterns observed in the fossil record. Examples include the succession in the fossil record; we cannot find the easily fossilized mammals before 300 million years ago; after the extinction of the dinosaurs, the fossil record indicates that mammals and birds radiated throughout the planet. Additionally, the fact that we are able to construct fairly consistent phylogenetic trees using distinct genetic markers in the genome is only explained by evolutionary theory. Finally, we show that the processes that drive evolution, both on short and long time scales, are observable facts. Sociedade Brasileira de Genética 2019-02-28 2019 /pmc/articles/PMC6428117/ /pubmed/30816905 http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/1678-4685-GMB-2018-0086 Text en Copyright © 2019, Sociedade Brasileira de Genética. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License information: This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (type CC-BY), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original article is properly cited.
spellingShingle Evolutionary Genetics
Russo, Claudia A.M.
André, Thiago
Science and evolution
title Science and evolution
title_full Science and evolution
title_fullStr Science and evolution
title_full_unstemmed Science and evolution
title_short Science and evolution
title_sort science and evolution
topic Evolutionary Genetics
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6428117/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30816905
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/1678-4685-GMB-2018-0086
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