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On the Origin of Species is a work of scientific literature by Charles Darwin that is considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology; it was published on 24 November 1859. Darwin's book introduced the scientific theory that populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection. The book presented a body of evidence that the diversity of life arose by common descent through a branching pattern of evolution. Darwin included evidence that he had collected on the Beagle expedition in the 1830s and his subsequent findings from research, correspondence, and experimentation.
Apes are a clade of Old World simians native to sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, which together with its sister group Cercopithecidae form the catarrhine clade, cladistically making them monkeys. Apes do not have tails due to a mutation of the TBXT gene. In traditional and non-scientific use, the term "ape" can include tailless primates taxonomically considered Cercopithecidae, and is thus not equivalent to the scientific taxon Hominoidea. There are two extant branches of the superfamily Hominoidea: the gibbons, or lesser apes; and the hominids, or great apes.
Comparative anatomy is the study of similarities and differences in the anatomy of different species. It is closely related to evolutionary biology and phylogeny.
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach was a German physician, naturalist, physiologist, and anthropologist. He is considered to be a main founder of zoology and anthropology as comparative, scientific disciplines. He was also important as a race theorist.
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The parvorder Catarrhini, catarrhine monkeys, Old World anthropoids, or Old World monkeys, consisting of the Cercopithecoidea and apes (Hominoidea). In 1812, Geoffroy grouped those two groups together and established the name Catarrhini, "Old World monkeys",. Its sister in the infraorder Simiiformes is the parvorder Platyrrhini. There has been some resistance to directly designate apes as monkeys despite the scientific evidence, so "Old World monkey" may be taken to mean the Cercopithecoidea or the Catarrhini. That apes are monkeys was already realized by Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in the 18th century. Linnaeus placed this group in 1758 together with what we now recognise as the tarsiers and the New World monkeys, in a single genus "Simia". The Catarrhini are all native to Africa and Asia. Members of this parvorder are called catarrhines.
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Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature is an 1863 book by Thomas Henry Huxley, in which he gives evidence for the evolution of humans and apes from a common ancestor. It was the first book devoted to the topic of human evolution, and discussed much of the anatomical and other evidence. Backed by this evidence, the book proposed to a wide readership that evolution applied as fully to man as to all other life.
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Devolution, de-evolution, or backward evolution is the notion that species can revert to supposedly more primitive forms over time. The concept relates to the idea that evolution has a purpose (teleology) and is progressive (orthogenesis), for example that feet might be better than hooves or lungs than gills. However, evolutionary biology makes no such assumptions, and natural selection shapes adaptations with no foreknowledge of any kind. It is possible for small changes to be reversed by chance or selection, but this is no different from the normal course of evolution and as such de-evolution is not compatible with a proper understanding of evolution due to natural selection.
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Frederic Wood Jones FRS, usually referred to as Wood Jones, was a British observational naturalist, embryologist, anatomist and anthropologist, who spent considerable time in Australia.
Sir Richard Owen was an English biologist, comparative anatomist and paleontologist. Owen is generally considered to have been an outstanding naturalist with a remarkable gift for interpreting fossils.
The Great Hippocampus Question was a 19th-century scientific controversy about the anatomy of ape and human uniqueness. The dispute between Thomas Henry Huxley and Richard Owen became central to the scientific debate on human evolution that followed Charles Darwin's publication of On the Origin of Species. The name comes from the title of a satire the Reverend Charles Kingsley wrote about the arguments, which in modified form appeared as "the great hippopotamus test" in Kingsley's 1863 book for children, The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby. Together with other humorous skits on the topic, this helped to spread and popularise Darwin's ideas on evolution.
Before Charles Darwin and his groundbreaking theory of evolution, primates were mainly used as caricatures of human nature. Although comparisons between man and animal are rather old, it was not until the findings of science that mankind recognised itself as a part of the animal kingdom. Caricatures of Darwin and his evolutionary theory reveal how closely science was intertwined with both the arts and the public during the Victorian era. They display the general perception of Darwin, his "monkey theory" and apes in 19th-century England.
Thomas Bendyshe (1827–1886) was an English barrister and academic, known as a magazine proprietor and translator.
References
- ↑ Blumenbach, Johann Friedrich (1825). A Manual of the Elements of Natural History. W. Simpkin & R. Marshall.
- ↑ Wilkins, Adam S. (2 January 2017). "History of the Face II: From Early Primates to Modern Humans". Making Faces. Belknap Press. p. 172. ISBN 9780674725522.
- ↑ "bimana". Merriam-Webster Dictionary . Retrieved 6 November 2021.
- ↑ Chisholm 1911.
- ↑ One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Bimana". Encyclopædia Britannica . Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 946.
- ↑ Darwin, Charles (1871). The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. Vol. 1 (1st ed.). London: John Murray. p. 190. ISBN 978-0-8014-2085-6 . Retrieved 6 November 2021.
