What is evolution? Few ideas are more controversial - and more misunderstood - than the biological theory of evolution. But it's also the case that, as a great scientist once said, Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution. So, if students want to truly understand biology in all of its forms, they will need to understand what evolution - the scientific idea - is. This volume in the Greenwood Guides to Great Ideas in Science series enables the reader to learn what evolution is by charting the course of the ideas of biological change from the ancient time to the present. Accessible and comprehensive,
Evolution: A Historical Perspective
shows how the great thinkers of the past and present mean when they say something evolved.
discusses the main components that make evolution such a singularly powerful scientific theory: Early attempts at explaining biological change, and scientific attempts to explain discoveries about life on earth; Charles Darwin's introduction of natural selection in
The Origin of Species
; Gregor Mendel's gene, and the merging of modern genetics and evolution in the Modern Synthesis; James Watson and Francis Crick's discovery of the structure of DNA, and the biochemical explanation for biological change
The volume includes a glossary, a timeline of events, and a bibliography of works that will be useful in further research.