Еволуција

This article is about evolution in the field of life science, for other uses please see Evolution (disambiguation).

Во биологијата, еволуцијата е промена на карактеристиките на живите организми преку генерациите. Вообичаената дефиниција на зборот во популарната наука ја вклучува и појавата на нови видови, исто така како производ на еволуцијата. Од развојот на модерната генетика во 40тите, еволуцијата е дефинирана поспецифично како промена на фреквенцијата на алелите (алтернативни форми на истиот ген) во една популација од една генерација до следната. Во другите полиња еволуција се користи во поширока смисла, за да означи било каков процес на промена во времето.

In biology, evolution is a change in the traits of living organisms over generations. The common definition of the word in popular science includes the emergence of new species as a product of evolution as well. Since the development of modern genetics in the 1940s, evolution has been defined more specifically as a change in the frequency of alleles (alternative forms of the same gene) in a population from one generation to the next. In other fields evolution is used more generally to refer to any process of change over time.

One of the first coherent theories of biological evolution was proposed in the early 19th century by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, though it did not meet with widespread approval. With the publication of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace's joint paper in 1858 followed by Darwin's book Origin of Species in 1859, the theory of evolution by natural selection became firmly established within the scientific community and rapidly caught the public imagination. In the 1930s, work by a number of scientists combined Darwinian natural selection with the re-discovered theory of heredity proposed by Gregor Mendel to create the modern evolutionary synthesis. In the modern synthesis, "evolution" means a change in the frequency of an allele within a gene pool. This change may be caused by a number of different mechanisms: natural selection, genetic drift or changes in population structure (gene flow).

In common parlance the word "evolution" is often used as shorthand for the modern synthesis of evolution, including the theory that all extant species share a common ancestor. It also is often used to describe the mechanisms which act to change populations over time.