Genetics & Evolution
The plants and animals that are so familiar to us today may have been harder to spot millions of years ago. The theory of evolution, one of the keystones of modern biological theory, is based on the idea that living things on Earth can be traced back to other preexisting types and that the differences are due to modifications that occurred over successive generations. Genetics, an essential part of the study of evolution, looks at the inheritance of characteristics by children from their parents. It can help explain how you got your mom's green eyes or why your hair is red even though your parents are brunettes.
Genetics & Evolution Encyclopedia Articles
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missing link
Missing link, hypothetical extinct creature halfway in the evolutionary line between modern human beings and their anthropoid progenitors. In the latter half of the 19th century, a common misinterpretation...
speciation
Speciation, the formation of new and distinct species in the course of evolution. Speciation involves the splitting of a single evolutionary lineage into two or more genetically independent lineages. (Read...
human evolution
Human evolution, the process by which human beings developed on Earth from now-extinct primates. Viewed zoologically, we humans are Homo sapiens, a culture-bearing upright-walking species that lives on...
Darwinism
Darwinism, theory of the evolutionary mechanism propounded by Charles Darwin as an explanation of organic change. It denotes Darwin’s specific view that evolution is driven mainly by natural selection....
mosaic evolution
Mosaic evolution, the occurrence, within a given population of organisms, of different rates of evolutionary change in various body structures and functions. An example can be seen in the patterns of development...
adaptation
Adaptation, in biology, the process by which a species becomes fitted to its environment; it is the result of natural selection’s acting upon heritable variation over several generations. Organisms are...
human genetics
Human genetics, study of the inheritance of characteristics by children from parents. Inheritance in humans does not differ in any fundamental way from that in other organisms. The study of human heredity...