![]() ![]() That attitude probably stems from the tendency of humans to think anthropocentrically, but the scholarship of natural theology, which was prominent in 18th-and 19th-century England, codified it even before Lamarck defined biology in the modern sense. Nonetheless, many people evaluate nonhuman organisms according to human anatomy and physiology and mistakenly conclude that humans are the ultimate product, even goal, of evolution. But for the organisms possessing those structures, each is a useful adaptation. The notion that humans might regress or "devolve" presumes that there is a preferred hierarchy of structure and function-say, that legs with feet are better than legs with hooves or that breathing with lungs is better than breathing with gills. All changes in the gene frequencies of populations-and quite often in the traits those genes influence-are by definition evolutionary changes. ![]() ![]() Dougherty, assistant director and senior staff biologist at Biological Sciences Curriculum Study in Colorado Springs, Colo., to offer his opinion.įrom a biological perspective, there is no such thing as devolution. Small, associate professor in the anthropology department at Cornell University. A similar question was previously answered by Meredith F. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |