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Word Gems exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity
Dr. Stephen C. Meyer
return to "Evolution" main-page
from https://stephencmeyer.org/2001/05/16/the-meanings-of-evolution/
Principal Meanings of Evolution in Biology Textbooks
Evolution as Change Over Time. Nature has a history; it is not static. Natural sciences deal with evolution in its first sense — change over time in the natural world — when they seek to reconstruct series of past events to tell the story of nature’s history. Astronomers study the life cycles of stars; geologists ponder the changes in the earth’s surface; paleontologists note changes in the types of life that have existed over time, as represented in the sedimentary rock record (fossil succession); biologists note ecological succession within recorded human history, which may have, for example, transformed a barren island into a mature forested island community. Although the last example has little to do with neoDarwinian evolutionary theory, it still fits within the first general sense of evolution as natural historical progression or sequence of events.
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