"Evolution" or "evolution" is a foreign word that is translated from an English word, the English noun is evolution, and the verb form is evolve. It is of Latin origin and originally meant to unfold a rolled object. The earliest use of it in biology is not what it means now. A Swiss physiologist, and a well-known anatomist and naturalist, albrechtvon Haller (1708–1777) used evolution in "pre-existentism". Pre-establishment theory holds that all living things were created at the same time, and that generation after generation of individuals is just these prototypes that continue to grow and unfold. For example, the pregenitory holds that a multicellular organism developed from a fertilized egg is formed in its fertilized egg, even in a sperm cell or egg cell, and all organ tissues already exist, and only grow up slowly until later. According to Haller, it is slowly "unfolding".
The real use of evolution in biological evolution was the 19th-century British philosopher, biologist, and sociologist Herbert Spencer (1820–1903). His definition of biological evolution is simply translated as the process of change of matter from disorder to order, from homogeneity to heterogeneity, from simple to complex. This definition became so popular and influential in the late 19th century that many people still hold this view today. This definition holds that biological evolution is directional and contains a sense of "progress", so it is logical to translate evolution as "evolution".
Pictured here is Herbert Spencer
Does evolution really mean "progressive"? Let's see what Charles Darwin (1809–1882) thought. Darwin used several words in his Origin of Species to describe biological evolution: "descent with modification", which refers to the characteristics of living things "passed down from generation to generation, slightly changed"; there are two meanings: one is to pass on, the other is to change. To put this definition more fully, biological evolution is "a very slow, heritable change in the morphology, physiology, and behavior of organisms between generations." This is the definition given from a macroscopic point of view, and from the literal meaning of this definition, the evolution of living things is heritable change, without direction. From a microscopic point of view, biological evolution has another definition: "the process of changing the frequency of genes in a population between generations", and from this definition, biological evolution does not have any directionality. Therefore, "evolution" becomes a more appropriate translation.
One might ask, if biological evolution has no direction, why do we now see many life forms on Earth that have indeed gone through a process of change from few to many, from simple to complex. This involves the factors that drive biological evolution: biological evolution has no direction, but some of the factors that drive evolution have directions, especially natural selection, which is a very powerful force that makes organisms change in a certain direction, and this direction is adaptation to the environment.
The picture shows Charles Darwin
In China, people have long used the word "evolution", and when using "evolution", it often contains the meaning of "progress", which is why some people use "degeneration" as the opposite of "evolution". Going a step further, the definition of "evolution" in most biological dictionaries has the meaning of "evolution + natural selection". In fact, whether "evolution" or "degeneration" is evolution, there is no distinction between progress and regression. "Evolution" better reflects the essence of biological evolution and is a suggested term for many biological evolution researchers. Of course, the word "evolution" has been used in China for a long time, because it is a conventional usage and may continue to be used by everyone. But whether you use "evolution" or "evolution", when choosing a word, you should first define it and clarify its true meaning to avoid ambiguity.
Recommended reading
Origin of Species
Darwin, Shu Degan et al., 2005, Peking University Press
The book is 15 chapters, from domestic animals and artificial selection, natural variation and natural selection of organisms, the law of biological variation, the origin and slow change of species, the succession of paleontology, the geographical distribution of organisms, to the biological kinship based on morphology and embryology, etc., Darwin put forward the theoretical framework of biological evolution through a large number of vivid examples, laying a scientific foundation for the entire life science. It is worth mentioning that in this book, Darwin devotes a chapter (chapter six) to answer some of the questions raised by people about his theory one by one, and also uses a chapter (chapter seven) to list the views opposed to his theory, and uses a large number of facts to refute them accordingly, which fully reflects Darwin's confidence in his theory. Although Darwin's theory of biological evolution is mainly based on his observations and inferences about a large number of phenomena due to the limitations of the times, and lacks genetic evidence, this can not erase his great contribution to the natural sciences, as Marx said, "Darwin's "Origin of Species contains the natural science basis of our theory.".
The translator, Academician Shudgan, is a professor at Northwestern University, and the English version of the translation is the sixth edition of Darwin's "The Origin of Species". The translation features the addition of an "introduction" to each chapter of the translation, which will help the reader to better understand Darwin's evolutionary ideas.
Why Believe Darwin
Jerry A. Coyne, translated by Ye Sheng, 2009, Science Press
The author, Jerry Coyne, is a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Chicago and a renowned scientist in the field of evolutionary biology. Originally titled "Why evolution is true", this popular science work was published in 2009 – the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species, which is a very important commemoration of Darwin and his theory of evolution. This book is written for readers who are deeply influenced by creationism, and it is a defense of Darwin's theory of evolution with a large number of objective facts, and the translator Ye Sheng also lamented that when translating this book, it was like withstanding the great pressure of American fundamentalism and experiencing a big debate with Professor Cohen. The book begins with a quote from Jacques Mono: "Everyone thinks they know the theory of evolution," but probably not everyone knows enough about it, and we need evidence for or against it. Although the fierce dispute between evolution and creationism is not felt in China, it is necessary to understand this important theory as the basis of biology from a scientific perspective. After more than a hundred years of development, evolution has departed from the early stages of pure philosophical speculation, and now the means of studying biological evolution have been greatly enriched, and the massive evidence of genetics, paleontology, geology, anatomy and molecular biology shows that evolution is not just a theory, but a serious fact. The book is logically clear, the big problems are split into small ones, and the reader is presented with a scientific experiment project with detailed evidence, telling us how a scientist thinks about how to debate, and readers who are biological and non-professional can be inspired. The examples in the book are vivid and lively, why do flounder eyes grow on the same side of the body? Why do marine islands have similar species to neighboring continents? What drove human evolution? These questions, large and small, can be answered in this book. Because there are still many unknowns, the theory of evolution is inevitably controversial, but science is not afraid of controversy, and it is in constant debate with opponents that the theory of evolution has become more and more clear.
evolution (third edition)
douglas j. futuyma，2013，sinauer associates inc., usa.
If you have a keen interest in biological evolution and want to read a book to acquire all the human intelligence that the discipline has condensed since its inception, then Professor Futuyma's evolution (third edition) is the ideal choice for you. Douglas j. futuyma is a veteran scholar with decades of experience in the field of evolution, who has a comprehensive and profound insight into biological evolution and strives to popularize evolutionary knowledge to as many audiences as possible through concise and easy-to-understand text. Evolution is his latest textbook monograph dedicated to all those who love the science of evolution. In my opinion, this book has the following three characteristics. First, it is clear and well organized, complete and not chaotic. Evolutionary science has flourished for more than a hundred years, and due to the different research methods, it involves many fields, such as archaeology, geology, biogeography, ecology, population genetics, molecular biology, developmental biology and so on. The author respects the historical evolution of the field of evolution, and roughly introduces the development process of evolution chemistry from shallow to deep, from macro to micro, according to the time clues, and the content is detailed and comprehensive. Second, the pictures and texts are rich and concise. As a textbook-oriented work, this book is very readable. The narrative of each chapter will be demonstrated with several examples, and each example will basically be presented to the reader in the form of vivid and exquisite charts, giving me the feeling that when you understand all the illustrations, the whole chapter is basically integrated. The last point, and what impressed me, is the scientific spirit of this book that is eclectic, impartial, and strives for objectivity. Science has always been a matter of contention, and evolutionary science, as the cornerstone of modern biology, is very normal to have different views within the scope of science. In the final chapter, the author states that "science as a social process is temporary, it questions faith and authority, it constantly tests its own views with evidence"; "Even though the scientist as an individual may cling to a hypothesis, the scientist as a whole does not cling to any belief... As long as the evidence is conclusive, they must and will change their minds." The author himself also implements the scientific spirit of seeking truth from facts in the book, and has a detailed and appropriate introduction to different hypotheses, trying to provide readers with an objective scientific platform and cultivate basic scientific literacy. I think this is the most suitable knowledge for a qualified textbook.
The Chinese translation of the book will soon be published by higher education press, led by Ge Song, a researcher at the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and many teachers and classmates from Peking University participated in the translation work.