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modern doctrines of evolution

The synthetic theory of evolution (STE) is a modern evolutionary theory, which is a synthesis of various disciplines, primarily genetics and Darwinism, and is based on paleontology, taxonomy, and molecular biology. All supporters of the synthetic theory recognize the participation of three factors in evolution: Mutation Selection Recombination Generating new gene variants Determining compliance with given living conditions Creating new phenotypes of individuals

The origin of ste The synthetic theory in its current form was formed: as a result of the transformation of Weismann's views into Morgan's chromosomal genetics: adaptive differences are transmitted from parents to descendants with chromosomes in the form of new genes Due to natural selection.

The impetus for the development of the synthetic theory was given by the hypothesis of the recessiveness of new genes. This hypothesis assumed that in each reproducing group of organisms, during the maturation of gametes, as a result of errors in DNA replication, mutations constantly occur - new variants of genes. Development of STE

S.S. Chetverikov I.I. Schmalhausen N.V. Timofeev-Resovsky G.F. Gause N.P. Dubinin A.L. Takhtadzhyan N.K. Koltsov F.G. Dobrzhansky THE CONTRIBUTION OF RUSSIAN SCIENTISTS TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF STE Schmalhausen

E. Mayr E. Baur W. Zimmerman J. Simpson W. Ludwig R. Fischer

The main provisions of synthetic evolution 1. LOCAL POPULATION IS CONSIDERED THE ELEMENTARY UNIT OF EVOLUTION; 2. MATERIAL FOR EVOLUTION IS CONSIDERED MUTATIONAL AND RECOMBINATIONAL VARIABILITY; 3. NATURAL SELECTION IS CONSIDERED AS THE MAIN CAUSE FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF ADAPTATIONS, SPECIFICATION AND THE ORIGIN OF SUPPARATE TAXA; 4. DRIFT OF THE GENES AND THE FOUNDER PRINCIPLE ARE THE REASONS FOR THE FORMATION OF NEUTRAL SIGNS; 5. A SPECIES IS A SYSTEM OF POPULATIONS REPRODUCTIVELY ISOLATED FROM POPULATIONS OF OTHER SPECIES AND EACH SPECIES IS ECOLOGICALLY SEPARATED; 6. SPECIFICATION CONSISTS IN THE APPEARANCE OF GENETIC ISOLATION MECHANISMS AND IS CARRIED OUT MOSTLY UNDER CONDITIONS OF GEOGRAPHICAL ISOLATION.

Comparative characteristics of the theories "Pure Darwinism" (LS Berg) 1. All organisms developed from one or a few primary forms. 2. Development was divergent 3. Development was based on random variations. 4. Factors of progress are the struggle for existence and natural selection. 5. The process of evolution consists in the formation of new features. 6. The extinction of organisms occurs from external causes: the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest. Synthetic theory (N.I. Vorontsov) 1. The smallest unit of evolution is the population. 2. The main driving factor in evolution is the natural selection of random and small mutations. 3. Evolution is divergent. 4. Evolution is gradual and long-term. Each systematic unit must have a single root. This is required condition for the very right to exist. Evolutionary systematics builds a classification based on kinship. Outside the species, evolution stops. The view is polytypical. The variability is random. Evolution is unpredictable.

Criticism of the Synthetic Theory of Evolution As one of the most frequently criticized provisions of STE, one can cite its approach to explaining secondary similarity. 1. According to neo-Darwinism, all signs of living beings are completely determined by the composition of the genotype and the nature of selection. Therefore, parallelism is explained by the fact that organisms have inherited a large number of identical genes from their ancestor, and the origin of convergent traits is entirely attributed to the action of selection. However, it is well known that similarities that develop in fairly distant lineages are often maladaptive and therefore cannot be plausibly explained either by natural selection or by common inheritance. Independent inheritance of identical genes and their combination are obviously excluded, since mutations and recombinations are random processes.

Evolutionary factors Do not direct the evolutionary process Directs the evolutionary process Mutations Isolation Population waves Gene drift Natural selection based on the struggle for life Changing the genetic composition of populations

Speciation is a qualitative stage of the evolutionary process. This means that the formation of species ends microevolution and macroevolution begins.

Each species is a closed genetic system. Representatives different types do not interbreed, and if they do interbreed, they either do not give offspring, or this offspring is barren. Therefore, divergent speciation must be preceded by the emergence of isolated populations within the ancestral species.

The most important concepts of evolution: elementary phenomena of evolution - changes that occur in a population through recombinations, mutations and natural selection, separating this population from others. the elementary material of evolution is hereditary variability in individuals of a population, which leads to the emergence of both qualitative and quantitative phenotypic differences. elementary factors of evolution - natural selection, mutations, population waves and isolation isolation, mutation and population waves affect the evolution of a species, and natural selection directs it.

Basic rules of evolution: Irreversibility Progressive specialization Alternation of the main directions of evolution: allogenesis and arogenesis

Patterns of Evolution: 1. The first and main pattern is the irreversible nature of evolution: Organisms, populations and species. Those who have arisen in the course of evolution cannot return to the previous state of their ancestors. Evolution is an irreversible process of the historical development of the organic world.

2. The second pattern - the general direction (trend) of the evolutionary process - Progressive complication of life forms: Consists in the continuous adaptation of the living world to constantly changing conditions environment. In the transformation of species and the isolation of some species from others. Evolution is a process of unprogrammed development of living nature

3. The third pattern of evolution - Development of adaptability (adaptation) of species to the habitat of adaptation General (the presence of limbs in terrestrial animals) private (different types of limbs in connection with the place and way of life)

Thus, evolution, which began on our planet from the moment life appeared on it, is an unpredictable and irreversible process of the development of the living world, which is programmed, occurring in conjugation between species and the environment.

Abstract on biology on the topic:

"Human evolution"

Teacher:

Completed:

Moscow, 2005

Evolution. 3

Theory of the development of the animal world of Charles Darwin. 4

Man and monkeys.. 7

Formation of man. 11

Great apes.. 13

Chimpanzees and the language of the deaf and dumb. fourteen

Gorillas.. 15

About a human. 17

Man-transformer of the world. 17

Man is a product of the development of nature and society. 17

accumulated by generations. nineteen

Relay of humanity. nineteen

Photos and diagrams.. 21

List of used literature.. 24

Evolution

For thousands of years, it seemed obvious to people that wildlife was created as we know it now, and has always remained unchanged.

But already in ancient times, conjectures were made about the gradual change, development (evolution) of living nature. One of the forerunners of evolutionary ideas can be called the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus (VI-V centuries BC), who formulated the position about changes constantly occurring in nature (“everything flows, everything changes”).

Another ancient Greek thinker - Empedocles - in the V century. BC e. put forward probably one of the oldest theories of evolution. He believed that at first scattered parts of various organisms (heads, torsos, legs) appeared. They combined with each other in the most incredible combinations. This is how, in particular, centaurs (mythical half-humans, half-horses) appeared. Later, as if all unviable combinations perished.

The great ancient Greek scientist Aristotle lined up all the organisms he knew in a row as they became more complex. In the XVIII century. this idea was developed by the Swiss naturalist Charles Bonnet, who created the doctrine of the “ladder of nature”. On the first step of the "ladder" were "subtle matters" - fire, air, water, earth; on the next - plants and animals according to the degree of complexity of their structure, on one of the upper steps - a person, and even higher - the heavenly host and God. True, there was, of course, no talk of the possibility of a transition “from step to step”, and this system still has a very distant relation to evolution.

The first consistent theory of the evolution of living organisms was developed by the French scientist Jean Baptiste Lamarck in his book Philosophy of Zoology, published in 1809 (see article Jean Baptiste Lamarck). Lamarck suggested that during life each individual changes, adapts to the environment. The new traits acquired by her throughout her life are transmitted to offspring. This is how changes accumulate from generation to generation. But Lamarck's reasoning contained an error, which consisted in a simple fact: acquired characteristics are not inherited. At the end of the XIX century. German biologist August Weismann set up a famous experiment - for 22 generations he cut off the tails of experimental mice. And still, newborn mice had tails no shorter than their ancestors.

The English scientist Charles Darwin (his life and the theory of evolution he created is also described in the article “Charles Darwin”), unlike Lamarck, drew attention to the fact that although any living creature changes during life, individuals of the same species are born different. Darwin wrote that an experienced farmer could distinguish each of the sheep, even in a large herd. For example, their coat may be lighter or darker, thicker or less frequent, etc. normal conditions environment, such differences are insignificant. But with a change in living conditions, these small hereditary changes can give advantages to their owners. Among the many useless and harmful changes, there may be useful ones.

Arguing in this way, Darwin came to the idea of ​​natural selection. Individuals with useful differences survive and reproduce better, transmit their traits to offspring. Therefore, in the next generation, the percentage of such individuals will increase, in a generation - even more, etc. This is the mechanism of evolution. Darwin wrote: “It can be said that natural selection daily and hourly investigates the smallest changes all over the world, discarding the bad ones, preserving and adding up the good ones, working inaudibly and invisibly ...”

Theory of the development of the animal world of Charles Darwin

The English scientist Charles Darwin managed to create a theory of the development of the living world, which became the basis of biological science of the 20th century.

Charles Darwin was born on February 12, 1809 in the English city of Shrewsbury in the family of a doctor. In his Autobiography, Darwin recalled: “Already by the time I went to school, my taste for natural history, and especially for collecting collections, was clearly expressed. I tried to figure out the names of plants and collected all sorts of things: shells, seals, coins and minerals.

But he did not think about the career of a naturalist for a long time. Studying at the universities of Edinburgh and Cambridge, he first prepared to become a physician, and then, having changed his intentions, a priest. “When one considers how savagely I was later attacked by the supporters of the church, it is simply ridiculous to remember that I myself once had the intention of becoming a pastor,” wrote Darwin.

The case determined the whole course of his later life. In the autumn of 1831, he was offered to travel around the world on the warship Beagle (Shound) as a naturalist. The journey lasted for five years. Luxurious pictures of tropical vegetation still stand before my eyes. The majestic deserts of Patagonia, the mountains of Tierra del Fuego crowned with forests, made an indelible impression on me. The sight of such a savage in his home country- an event that you will not forget in your whole life, ”he said.

Darwin's Diary of a Voyage on the Beagle, published in 1839, reads like a fascinating novel. Here is how Darwin, for example, colorfully describes the life of the savages whom he observed on Tierra del Fuego: “At night, five or six human beings, naked and barely protected from wind and rain in this stormy climate, sleep on the wet ground, curled up like animals! At low tide, in winter and summer, day and night, they must go to the rocks to collect shellfish for food. If you manage to kill a seal or find a floating, decomposed corpse of a whale, then this is already a holiday, and some tasteless berries and mushrooms are added to such terrible food.

During the journey, Darwin encountered many facts that made him question the then prevailing idea of ​​eternity and the immutability of species.

Darwin stepped on board the ship, not at all doubting the eternity and immutability of the species. Going ashore when returning to his homeland, he was already deeply convinced that species can change, give rise to other species.

Darwin returned from his journey on the Beagle a staunch supporter of the variability of species. But how to explain the amazing adaptation of organisms to their way of life? Darwin was not satisfied with the mechanism of variability proposed by Lamarck (see article "Jean Baptiste Lamarck"). And, not seeing such a mechanism, he considered it almost useless to "heap circumstantial evidence in favor of the variability of species."

And in 1838, he "for fun" read the work of the economist Thomas Malthus "On Population". According to Malthus, man (like all living things - plants and animals) is by nature prone to unlimited reproduction. Livelihood growth cannot keep up with it. The natural consequences of this are poverty, hunger, and disease.

Darwin was immediately struck by the idea that such a law should apply to all living beings. He gave such an example: even a pair of elephants, which breed more slowly than other animals, could give birth to 19 million individuals in 750 years. Of course, not all descendants survive, but only the fittest. Under these conditions, beneficial changes will be consolidated, while harmful ones will be destroyed. Later, Darwin even wrote that his theory is "the teaching of Malthus, extended to both kingdoms - animals and plants."

It was not until 1842 that he wrote his first essay on evolution. In two years it has grown from 35 to 230 pages. In total, Darwin wrote the main work of his life for more than 20 years.

Darwin's predecessor Lamarck believed that organisms do not change by chance, but in a certain direction. According to Lamarck, for example, if the climate becomes colder, all animals begin to grow longer hair, which is passed on to offspring. Darwin, on the contrary, believed that the most important thing is random, indefinite changes. Among the animals there may be individuals with thick and sparse hair. But with a cooling of the climate, only individuals with thick hair will survive and give offspring. This is how natural selection works.

Darwin conceived a three or four volume work on the origin of species and began to work on it. But these plans were violated in the most unexpected way.

Early in the summer of 1858, a young naturalist, Alfred Wallace, sent an essay to Darwin for review. It (an amazing coincidence!) outlined the same theory as in Darwin's future book. Wallace wrote his essay in three days!

Darwin's friends insisted that Wallace's essay and a brief extract from Darwin's manuscript be published at the same time. Darwin said: “At first I did not agree, thinking that Wallace would consider my act unjustifiable. I would rather burn my whole book than give him or anyone else a reason to think that I have acted low. At that time, I did not yet know what a noble, generous person he was. Wallace completely abandoned priority in favor of Darwin. He later wrote a book called Darwinism, which is where the word came from.)

Wallace's essay and extracts from Darwin's work were printed at the same time and ... did not make any impression. The only printed review, written by one professor, condescendingly stated: "Everything new in these works is wrong, and everything right is not new."

“All this only proves that any new thought must be explained in detail in order to attract everyone's attention,” Darwin wrote about this.

A year later, the main work of Darwin's life was published. It was named according to the tradition of that era verbosely: "The origin of species by natural selection or the survival of favored breeds in the struggle for life." For the first time, on November 24, 1859, the entire circulation of the book was sold - 1250 copies, which at that time was unheard of for scientific work.

In The Origin of Species, Darwin did not elaborate on the origin of man. In 1871 he released separate work"The origin of man and sexual selection", where he considered this issue.

The idea put forward in the teachings of Darwin about the origin of man from animals has always met with the greatest objections. After the publication of the book, one of the scientist’s friends addressed him with a letter signed as follows: “Your old friend, and now a descendant of a monkey.”

Darwin himself wrote about this: “I think with regret that the main conclusion of this work, that man comes from a less perfect organic form, will not be to the taste of many. But it is impossible to deny that we are descended from savages.” Darwin again recalls his meeting with the savages of Tierra del Fuego and continues: “The first thought that came to my mind was - such were our ancestors.

As for me, I am also ready to trace my lineage from that heroic little monkey who rushed at his most terrible enemy in order to save the life of his watchman; or from that old monkey who descended from the mountains and triumphantly carried off his little comrade, having beaten him off from a whole pack of puzzled dogs - as well as from this savage.

In 1872, the book The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals was published, which grew out of one chapter of the work The Origin of Man and Sexual Selection. On the first day, 5,000 copies of the book were sold. It is curious that Darwin began to take notes for this work as early as 1839, observing the expression of emotions in his first child, who was then born.

Charles Darwin died at the age of 73 on April 19, 1882. Before his death, he said: "I am not at all afraid to die." He was buried in Westminster Abbey, next to the grave of Isaac Newton.

The fate of his teaching deserves a separate story (see article "Evolution"). Many religious figures have always remained irreconcilable opponents of Darwinism. But the author of The Origin of Species himself did not find a fundamental contradiction between his scientific views and religious views. This is how he ends this major work of his life:

“It is curious to stand on a densely overgrown shore, covered with numerous, varied plants, with birds singing in the bushes, with insects fluttering around, with worms crawling in the damp earth, and to think that all these beautifully built forms were created thanks to the laws that operate and now around us. From the war raging in the midst of nature, from hunger and death, the highest result that the mind is able to imagine directly follows - the formation of higher forms of animal life. There is greatness in this view, according to which the Creator initially breathed life, with its various manifestations, into one or a limited number of forms. And from such a simple beginning, innumerable forms arose, amazingly perfect and beautiful.

Man and monkeys

The earth is the birthplace of man. With innumerable threads of kinship, he is connected with the nature of the Earth, with animals and plants. The human body consists of the same substances and elements as our planet. Man was born by the animal world, in which to this day there are many species closely related to man. First of all, they are monkeys. Some of them are less like a person, for example, American ones - marmosets and capuchins, others, monkeys in Africa and Asia - monkeys, macaques, have more resemblance to humans.

But, it turns out, it is possible to establish an even closer relationship between man and such highly developed apes as chimpanzees. In many anatomical and physiological features, chimpanzees are more like humans than, say, monkeys, baboons, or macaques. And it is no coincidence that this monkey is called anthropoid or anthropoid. Chimpanzee height - 1.4-1.5 m, weight - 50-60 kg. He doesn't have a tail. The structure of the brain also brings chimpanzees closer to humans.

Closely related to humans and gorillas. They, like chimpanzees, live in the tropical forests of Africa. Gorillas are giants among monkeys: the height of the male reaches 1.8-2 m, weight - 100-200 kg or more.

The great apes also include the inhabitants of the forests of Asia - orangutans and gibbons. But if chimpanzees and especially gorillas spend a lot of time on the ground, then Asian anthropoids live almost exclusively in trees.

Orangutans are large, heavy monkeys: males weigh 100-200 kg, but their height rarely exceeds 1.4-1.5 m. Due to their large weight, they climb branches very carefully, leisurely. Females are smaller (1.1-1.2 m) and 1.5-2 times lighter.

Gibbons, on the contrary, are rarely heavier than 10-15 kg; usually they are not higher than 1 m and weigh 5-10 kg. These are unusually dexterous acrobats: they easily fly from tree to tree, covering a distance of up to 14 m. appearance gibbons resemble little hairy men. One Indian legend tells that people descended precisely from gibbons, who learned to cultivate the land, began to eat better, and then lost their hair, became taller and heavier. Of course, this is just a naive myth, but it indicates that people have long noticed a special similarity between apes and humans.

When the evolutionary theory of Charles Darwin appeared in 1859, a lot of scientifically reliable information about the structure of anthropoids and other apes had already accumulated. In 1863, a book by Charles Darwin's friend, the English scientist T. Huxley, "On the position of man among organic beings" was published. The author proved that a chimpanzee is incomparably closer to a person than a monkey, macaque or baboon. Five years later, the monograph of the German biologist E. Haeckel "The Natural History of the World Creation" was published. It asserted the origin of man from the animal world, from the fossil monkey.

Thus, at that time, the idea of ​​the relationship of man with animals, the idea of ​​​​his natural, and not miraculous origin, was developing. Darwin had already prepared the manuscript of a later printed book, in which he considered the problem of the origin of man in the light of the theory of natural selection he had created. He explained which animals were the ancestors of the first people on Earth, under the influence of what reasons they began to turn into humans, how their development went on.

Darwin wrote that man, with all his noble qualities, including humanity, with high abilities, especially reason, bears in his physical structure an indelible stamp of origin from the animal world.

Indeed, each person in external appearance and in internal structure has many such organs and features, the presence of which can only be explained by inheritance from animal ancestors, including monkeys.

Isn't there hair on the human head and body, like mammals have? Although there are few of them on the body, but on the head there are up to 100 and even 150 thousand. One can also point out here the special similarity of man with monkeys: in humans, like in monkeys, the hair on the arm from the shoulder and from the hand is directed to the elbow.

The skin patterns on the palms and soles of humans are strikingly similar to those of monkeys. And if you look at the nails, then there is an amazing similarity. By the way, man and all the named animals with nails are united by zoologists into one group of mammals, namely, into the detachment primates(from the Latin "primate" - preeminent).

A person with large anthropoids - a gorilla, a chimpanzee and an orangutan has much in common and in the process of their life cycle. After 8-9 months of intrauterine development, a cub is born in anthropoids weighing, as a rule, about 2 kg. Up to 5-6 months, the cub is helpless and feeds on mother's milk for a long time. He, like a child, has 20 milk teeth, which by the age of 12-15 are replaced by 32 permanent ones. Puberty in anthropoids occurs at the age of 8-12 years, and in male gorillas even later. Large anthropoids live in the wild for up to 40-50 years.

It is impossible not to mention one more group of evidence of the natural, and not the supernatural, not the divine origin of man. This is about rudimentary, i.e., underdeveloped (residual) organs; there are several dozen of them in the human body. Such, for example, is the appendix of the caecum (appendix). In anthropoids, it is 20-25 cm long, while in humans it is about 7 cm or less. The muscles of the human auricle are also of a rudimentary nature, since people have lost the ability to move their ears, so developed in many animals.

But in terms of the shape and size of the auricle, a person probably differs very little from his immediate ancestors.

Finally, it is necessary to say about cases of return to the ancestors, or atavism(from the Latin "ata-vus" - a distant ancestor), in the form and structure of various organs. Perhaps the most striking example of such a return to the ancestors is the birth of a child with a tail. Although such cases are quite rare, they make one wonder why this happens. For scientists, it is quite clear that the more distant ancestors of man had a tail, but in the process of evolution it was gradually reduced (reduction- reduction in size, simplification of the structure or complete disappearance of organs) and disappeared from the outside.

Thus, Darwin's doctrine of the closest relationship of man with anthropoids is fully confirmed by modern science.

Over ten million years ago, many different anthropoid and lower apes lived on the continents of Asia, Europe and Africa. They inhabited tropical and subtropical forests, which then covered vast plains and abounded in various fruits.

Among the monkeys there were also large anthropoids, for example dryopithecus(from the Greek words "dris" - a tree and "pitekos" - a monkey). Darwin considered Dryopithecus to be an important link in the longest human lineage. When moving through the trees, these monkeys clung to the branches, hanging to them with their hands, while the body was in a vertical position, and the legs were tucked in. But, probably, driopithecus could walk on thicker branches and even run on two legs. This was the original form of walking.

The ability to move on two legs, or to walk upright, was very useful to human ancestors when the climate on Earth began to change dramatically.

About 15 million years ago, during the Miocene epoch of the Tertiary period of the new, or Cenozoic, era (see Vol. 1 DE), the Earth became much drier, and the jungle massifs gradually disappeared. All this was associated with large transformations of the surface of the continents and changes in landscapes. At that time, huge mountain ranges arose, the directions of air currents carrying moisture or drought changed, and forests thinned out. As a result, many species of monkeys and semi-monkeys died out, others went to more southern regions, and some began to live in open areas.

It was these enormous changes that forced human ancestors to master the terrestrial way of life. Living conditions in open areas turned out to be less favorable than in forests. There was less food, and it became much more difficult to get it. In addition, in open areas it was incomparably more difficult to hide from predatory animals.

Of the terrestrial lower apes, let's pay attention to baboons. Their body size and weight increased. Their fangs grew and sharpened strongly. Nails have acquired some resemblance to claws due to constant movement on solid ground, from the need to turn over stones in search of insects. Baboons have acquired the features of semi-predators.

The development of driopithecus proceeded differently. In the struggle for existence, they began to use objects suitable for obtaining food and protection from predators. It was the path to humanization.

Many scientists have studied the behavior of chimpanzees. Under experimental conditions, chimpanzees discovered the ability to choose sticks of a certain section in order to open boxes like a key and take fruits hidden in them. The same monkeys took out high-hanging fruits, having previously built a stand from boxes for this.

The great Russian physiologist singled out monkeys among other animals. Thanks to four grasping limbs, monkeys develop more diverse relationships with the environment. This, in turn, develops muscular sense, touch, vision; monkeys see objects in volume and color.

Important experiments with chimpanzees were carried out by the Soviet zoopsychologist Kote. In full view of the animal, a candy was placed in the tube, which could not be pulled out with the fingers. But when the chimpanzee was given a board, he separated a chip from it with his teeth and pushed the candy out of the tube with it.

No less interesting are observations of chimpanzees in the rainforest. The American researcher J. Goodall has repeatedly seen in East Africa how a chimpanzee pulled a reed out of the ground and stuck it into a termite nest: when alarmed insects crawled onto the reed, the chimpanzee licked them and ate them.

Observations suggest that some modern monkeys, in certain natural conditions, use stones and sticks to get food, to protect themselves. Orangutans, gorillas and many other monkeys undoubtedly have a predisposition to this.

In the forest, on the trees, monkeys almost do not need tools at all and are used very rarely. But when a monkey encounters difficulties in captivity, he sometimes makes an attempt to overcome them with the help of certain objects as tools. It can be assumed that the same thing happened to human ancestors in open areas, poor in food sources, but teeming with dangerous animals.

The use of such "tools" became a systematic, habitual occupation among our two-legged ancestors and helped them well in the struggle for life. Some monkeys even began to correct, not just with their hands, but also with other objects, the shape of the stones or sticks they used: probably at first by accident, instinctively, and then deliberately, so that it would be more convenient to use them.

In other words, there were initial labor activities: in the hands of two-legged ape-like creatures were already real, specially made tools, although still very simple.

Among the more advanced monkeys, like South African or East African australopithecinekov(from the Latin "Australia" - southern and the Greek "pitekos" - monkey), and was, obviously, that breed of anthropoid, about which he spoke, and that she "far surpassed all others in intelligence and adaptability."

From the bones of Australopithecus, it can be judged that these monkeys were 1.2-1.4 m tall, if not more, and probably weighed 30-50 kg. The volume of the brain box averaged 500 cm3, in some it reached 600-650 cm3, or even more. In this they approached the most ancient people.

Of particular interest to scientists have been the recent finds of fossil bipedal monkeys in East Africa. Their skulls and bones in 1959 and 1961 found and described by the famous English anthropologist and paleontologist Louis Leakey. To these monkeys he ascribes traces of very rough upholstery on stones discovered by him not far from the found bones and skulls. Many experts do not consider these stones to be typical artificial tools. Nevertheless, African finds, including the discovery in 1961 by the French anthropologist I. Coppens of bones chadan-trail near Lake Chad in Africa, testify to the emergence of a person from an extensive family of Australopithecus, as a kind of "model" of our distant ancestors. Similar bone remains were also found in South Asia, which some scientists also consider the ancestral home of mankind.

We also mention one of the most recent finds. In 1972, near Lake Rudolph in Kenya, the skull bones of an ancient humanoid creature were found along with very primitive tools made of river pebbles. This interesting discovery was made by Richard Leakey, an English anthropologist, son of Louis Leakey. The reconstruction of the skull allowed R. Leakey to suggest that the volume of the brain box of this creature was about 800 cm3, i.e., noticeably larger than other Australopithecus skulls found. The African finds sparked a lively discussion among scientists about which fossil bipedal terrestrial ape-like creatures of the Quaternary (or even Tertiary) period in the history of the Earth should be considered the first people (hominids). Here it is necessary, first of all, to focus on the signs in the structure of the brain, indicating the influence of the function of labor activity on it, namely, on the frontal and temporal lobes of the cerebral hemispheres. In Australopithecus, the surface of the skull is smooth, like in all great apes. At Pithecanthropus the same, or the most ancient people, judging by the plaster casts of the cavity of their skull, growths of the frontal and temporal lobes are visible. Consequently, Australopithecus was before people, and their "tools" did not yet have sufficient constancy of the form of the human type.

It can be said directly that the creators of typical artificial tools were no longer monkeys, but the first people. After all, work begins with the manufacture of tools. And since people lived in primitive communities, the work itself was of a joint, social nature. Labor skills began to be passed down from generation to generation. Ape-like creatures of only one species, species ancient liudey, they began to regularly manufacture tools, to use them correctly when obtaining food and in defense against enemies. Of these, we will mention here again pithecanthrope(from the Greek "pithekos" - monkey and "anthropos" - man). His skullcap and femur were found by the Dutch anthropologist E. Dubois on the island of Java in 1891 and 1892. Later, bone remains of other Pithecanthropes were also found (one of the latest finds dates back to 1969).

In the course of the evolution of a new, more highly organized type of people, the development of the brain and higher nervous activity was combined with the complication of behavior; all this helped him to survive in harsh natural conditions. Some other highly developed bipedal apes of that time were also some sort of candidates for humanization, but they turned out to be unsuccessful attempts by nature and gradually died out.

Formation of man

The emergence of people on Earth with their systematic work marked a turning point in the evolution of the animal world. A completely new creature has appeared. Even if the very first people, or ape-men, outwardly still almost did not differ from their closest ancestors - the higher apes, however, the labor function and all of them labor activity have already drawn the line between man and the animal world.

ancient people, or otherwise archanthropes(from the Greek "archaios" - ancient, "anthropos" - man), lived in primitive herds. Together they fashioned the crude stone and, very likely, wooden tools so necessary for obtaining food and protection from predators. During work, the most ancient people had to somehow communicate with each other. At the same time, they could use mainly the sounds of the voice, as well as signs and gestures.

On a labor basis, a sound language was gradually formed in primitive communities. First, several dozen original sounds were modified and began to combine in different ways. But then the spoken language was, of course, the simplest, most primitive. Only after hundreds of millennia, he was able to turn into articulate speech. Work and speech beneficial effect on brain development. They were the two main reasons why the animal turned into a social working being - into a man.

The manufacture of tools and joint labor through tools led to the development of new social relations between the members of the primitive herd. More experienced in the manufacture of tools and weapons began to stand out. During the hunt, they were predominantly men, that is, very early in the history of mankind, there was a division of labor duties depending on physiological differences in sex and age.

How did the ancient people live? For their primitive herd is very importance had an animal hunt. The herd associations of primitive people for obtaining food already resembled something like a hunting horde.

About half a century ago, scientists managed to discover in China, 54 km southwest of Beijing, a very interesting site of another type of ape people - synanthropes(from the Latin "sinicus" - Chinese). In one of the caves, the skulls and bones of these ancient people were found, who lived here for several centuries in a row.

Judging by the length of the femurs, the height of men reached 1.63 m, women - 1.52 m. Their brain was larger than that of large monkeys, but smaller than that of ancient people: its volume was 915-1225 cm3.

Here, in the cave, the Sinanthropes apparently had a “workshop” of primitive stone tools that served them as weapons. During the excavations, various bones (skulls, jaws) of antelopes, deer and other animals hunted by Sinanthropes were also found. These ancient people also ate plants. Scientists have even found a whole nut that has survived since then. In different places of the cave, a layer of ash was uncovered mixed with pieces of charcoal and burnt animal bones. All this indicates that the Sinanthropes already knew fire, supported it; maybe they knew how to mine it.

The mastery of fire is a great achievement of the most ancient people. It helped the most ancient people overcome many difficulties of existence, especially during the period of the severe ice age that followed.

The fire of the fire warmed a group of synanthropes who huddled in a damp cave on dirty skins teeming with insects. These pathetic demi-humans, probably not yet wearing any clothes, were roasting the meat of slaughtered animals over a fire. Meat food is rich in important nutrients that plants do not contain: it strengthened the body of the most ancient people, and contributed to the better functioning of their brain. It can be assumed that without meat food, the formed ancient and ancient people would hardly have reached a high development and took on the appearance of their descendants - modern, or rational people. The constant need for meat food required a higher organization of the hunting horde, more diverse forms of tools compared to the simplest hand axe. In other words, all this contributed to the progressive evolution of primitive people.

With the development of labor and under its influence, the most ancient people, losing some of the simian features, began to acquire specifically human features, although these ancestors were in many ways very similar to large tailless apes. Their spinal column did not yet have a lumbar curve, and a strongly developed supraorbital bone ridge was preserved on the skull. Their forehead remained sloping, the skull was the widest in the lower third, like that of monkeys.

To ancient people, or paleoanthropists(from the Greek "palaios" - ancient), refer neanderthaltsev. The brain of Neanderthals has already reached, on average, the same volume as that of modern humans (about 1400 cm3).

What factors of evolution so influenced the development of the brain of emerging people?

Work and speech were the two main stimuli by which the human brain, which is very similar in its basic structure to the brain of a monkey, so sharply began to surpass it in size and perfection.

In the formation of modern man, the development of higher nervous activity played a huge role, in connection with which the central nervous system improved more quickly. Along with this, the human musculature somewhat decreased. This can be seen from the fact that the skeleton of the formed people was more massive, the skull had thick walls, an infraorbital ridge and a powerful jaw region, and in their descendants - people who were formed, or, as they are called, “ready”, the bones of the skeleton and skull became thin , with a much less pronounced outer relief.

The formed ancient and ancient people mastered fire, began to wear clothes and settle in caves. But the most important thing is that these people lived in primitive communities, mainly hunting hordes, with the leadership of the most experienced and brave men. Labor skills people passed on to offspring. They did this with the help of a sound language and showing the methods of making and using tools and weapons. In short, humans evolved as social beings and moved further and further away from the animal world.

People of the modern type of structure received a specific name "reasonable person". Most scientists believe that this species evolved from more ancient look- Neanderthal man. This opinion was confirmed by new finds of skulls and skeletons. For example, in Iraq, in the north-east of the country, in the Shanidar cave, from 1951 to 1960, the American researcher R. Solecki discovered seven skeletons of ancient people. In the structure of the skull of these people, many more primitive signs are visible. But along with this, however, a mild, chin protrusion is noticeable. The supraorbital ridge is not strongly developed. Consequently, the Shakidar ancient people already belonged to the transitional type, closer to "reasonable man."

The path of humanization of the monkey was hard and long. Our ancestors had to experience many kinds of hardships and work hard to win the fight against predators, feed themselves and survive, especially during the ice age. Under these conditions, formed modern people, or neoanthropes("new people"). It was about 50 thousand years ago. neoanthropes (cro-magnons and other groups) belong to the species "man mindny", to which all modern humanity belongs.

The emergence of groups of people of the type "reasonable man" was marked by the intensification of their social and labor activities. Many new types of tools and weapons appeared, driven hunting for large mammals began to be used. And this, in turn, caused a sharp jump in the development of human mental activity, his thinking, consciousness and articulate speech.

Each person from the moment of birth is influenced by other people, society. In individual development, he enters into new and new relationships with the surrounding world of objects and phenomena. His personality is formed in social work, and he himself contributes his share to the universal culture.

People are born already with a ready-made set of natural qualities inherent in the “reasonable person” species, therefore, every person can perceive the culture accumulated by mankind and make his own creative contribution to it, regardless of race and racial traits. Humanity can, of course, be more or less artificially divided into three races. Often they are called white, black and yellow, but anthropologists prefer other names: Caucasoid, Negroid and Mongoloid. There are many relatively small racial groups of an intermediate, transitional, or mixed character, as a result of which there are no sharp boundaries between the large races. For example, it is almost impossible to include the Ethiopians or Dravidians, Polynesians or Ainu entirely in one of the large races. Mixing of races, or miscegenation, is accompanied by the appearance of healthy offspring, enhances the unity of mankind. All this suggests that racial characteristics are of secondary importance.

The amazing general similarity and blood relationship between people of all races is explained by their anatomical commonality, and this commonality, in turn, is due to the unity of the origin of modern people_ from the Neanderthal species of our closest ancestors. The earliest humans that preceded the Neanderthal also descended from the same ancestral ape species.

This is what it consists monogenism, that is, the doctrine of the origin of mankind from one ancestral species, as Charles Darwin wrote. It refutes the false hypothesis polygenism, with the help of which, until recently, some reactionary scientists tried to prove that humanity, with his works, descended from three ancestral species, common with the gorilla, chimpanzee and orangutan.

great apes

Great apes are the largest and most intelligent of the apes. They have a large, highly developed brain, and their forelimbs are much longer than their hind limbs. Nails on all fingers. There are 32 teeth in the mouth. In terms of body structure and biochemical parameters, they are more similar to humans than other monkeys. They, like humans, have four blood types, and the blood of the bonobo pygmy chimpanzee can even be transfused to a human without any pre-treatment.

Orangutans are true great apes. Although the word "orangutan" is translated as "forest man", they have less in common with people than gorillas and chimpanzees. Orangutans live in Indonesia. Males reach a weight of 135 kg. They are small in height - 120-135 cm. With a massive body, they have short legs, but their arms are incredibly long, reaching a span of 2.5 m.

Orangutans are lonely wanderers. Males live as hermits. They own a large territory, where several females live, who roam the forest in the company of 1-2 cubs. At a chance meeting with other females, they pretend that they do not see each other and rush to disperse. Males, apparently, do not have to meet, but if the meeting happened, they make a scandal, yell at each other and demonstrate their own strength: they shake and break branches. However, fights can usually be avoided.

Orangutans, like gibbons, rarely descend to the ground. They live in crowns and move in the same way as gibbons, but more slowly. Their thumbs are so small that they cannot grasp anything with their help. Therefore, hands are not suitable for serious matters. In this regard, orangutans are inferior to many monkeys. However, they are still able to use a stick, stone, rope.

The life of an adult male is surprisingly monotonous. It consists of the search for plant food and its digestion, during which they sit, staring at one point with a melancholy look, and more often doze or sleep soundly in nests.

Males win the hand and heart of their chosen ones with a song that looks more like a vibrating roar and grunt. After 9-10 months, a cub is born to the female and immediately clings to the wool on her chest. Mothers love their offspring. They constantly clean them, comb them, warm them, and in hot weather they bathe them in the rain, like in a shower. Up to four years, the mother feeds the baby with milk, but at the same time introduces adult monkeys to food, puts well-chewed delicacies into her mouth, and a little later begins to regularly feed chewed greens from mouth to mouth. From the age of four, the cub becomes independent.

In chimpanzees, adult males weigh 70-80 kg with a height of 120-150 cm. Bonobo pygmy chimpanzees are half the size. Chimpanzees live in Africa north of the Congo River in herds of 30-80 individuals. There is no obvious leader in the herd, but there is a hierarchy, subordination. Chimpanzees are excellent climbers, but they spend a lot of time on the ground, making fifty-kilometer transitions.

They feed on fruits, nuts and tender young leaves. They feast on the honey of wild bees and insects. Savannah chimpanzees discovered a love for meat. During feeding, the herd breaks up into separate groups, dispersing through the forest, but maintaining sound contact with each other. If they find something tasty, they make loud joyful sounds, and the whole herd comes together to feast. Mainly males hunt, individually or in small groups. The objects of hunting are pygmy pigs, monkeys, young baboons. Cases of cannibalism are not uncommon - eating their own cubs. A successful hunter carries the prey to a tree, but one never eats, but shares with his comrades, tearing off a piece for each. The search for food in total takes 6-8 hours, leaving about half of the light part of the day for leisure, which undoubtedly contributes to the satisfaction of the natural curiosity and mental development of the chimpanzee.

The high mental development of chimpanzees is especially clearly manifested during communication. When meeting, the monkeys bow silently.

Chimpanzees and the language of the deaf and dumb

Chimpanzees can be taught to speak. Scientists have been trying to achieve this for a long time. However, the device of the larynx and vocal cords does not allow the monkeys to reproduce the words of human speech, and all attempts to get the monkeys to speak did not lead to anything, until the American scientists, the Gardners, guessed to teach chimpanzees the sign language of the deaf and dumb, in which each gesture meant the name of some object, action or concept.

Washoe, the first monkey to go to a monkey school, was not the brightest student, and the teachers didn't know exactly how to get down to business. For 3 years, the baby mastered 85 words. By the end of the training, she knew over 160 words. The very first words of human children are the most simple and necessary: ​​mom, dad. For Washoe, the words “tickle” and “more” were the most important. Monkeys are very fond of being tickled, and the word "more" allows you to do without many others. important words. Having eaten an apple, the monkey will fold his hands into a half ring (sign "more") - and, please - the teacher gives another piece of the apple.

Washoe did not just "pronounce" individual words, but learned to compose a phrase from two or three, even four words. For example: "Please give Washoe some fruit." When the monkey came across an object whose name it did not know, it came up with the name itself, using the words it already knew. So, she called the watermelon "to drink sweetly."

The monkeys easily learned that the word "hat" should be called not only the hat that they were shown in the lesson, but any headdress - everything that people wear on their heads. Quite unexpectedly, it turned out that monkeys are able to understand and use words-concepts such as “color”, “size”, “shape”, “everything”, “many”. They even learned ... to swear. The curriculum did not provide for the training of swearing, all the more it may seem completely fantastic that from the learned repertoire, many chimpanzees independently chose the word "dirty" as a curse.

Gorillas

Gorillas are the largest of the monkeys. Males reach a height of 188 cm and weight up to 260 kg.

Gorillas can stand up and walk perfectly on their hind legs, but usually move on all fours. At the same time, when walking, gorillas do not rely on the palms and pads of the fingers of the front paws, as all other animals do, but on the back of the bent fingers. This way of walking allows you to save quite thin sensitive skin on the inside of the hand.

Gorillas live in African rainforests. They live in family groups of 5-30 animals. They keep constantly on the ground, only nests are arranged on trees for the night, but they try not to climb above three meters, and old males generally prefer to sleep on the ground. They climb trees only to eat something there. The desire to live on earth does not mean that they are bad acrobats. It's just high risky to climb with their weight. Not every branch can withstand a two hundred kilogram load.

Gorillas are strict vegetarians. So far they have not been seen to eat meat or even insects. The main food is grass and leaves. Gorillas love bamboo shoots, ferns and creepers, and wild celery from herbs. Fruits and nuts are secondary food items. Animals do not have to drink. Juicy greens already contain enough moisture. Reservoirs and water in general are avoided, a do not like rain.

In order not to feel hungry, gorillas have to eat all day. Waking up in the morning, they immediately start breakfast, which lasts 2 hours. Then rest. Few build nests for daytime sleep. Most rest right on the ground. If the weather is sunny, they sunbathe like on the beach. Adults usually sleep or just sit leaning against a tree and melancholy chew on some stalk. The females mess around with the babies, well a older cubs start noisy games of catching up, riding down a hill, which is used as an inclined trunk, play "train", running in single file, putting their hands on each other's shoulders, fighting, finding out who is stronger ... Having a good rest, the monkeys start to lunch, which, with short breaks for rest, lasts several hours, imperceptibly turning into dinner. When it starts to get dark, which happens quite early in the tropics, they urgently build nests and settle down for the night.

Gorilla cubs are born every four years. The newborn is completely dependent on the mother. She carries him, feeds him, protects him, and when he becomes independent, she continues to patronize, providing emotional support: approving, sympathizing, pitying, encouraging when a teenager becomes scared, helping to pull out a splinter or treat a wound. At night, young gorillas happen to be attacked by a leopard, the only predator dangerous for them. These cats are afraid of adult animals.

Gorillas have long been said to be vicious, insidious creatures. Such a suspicion was prompted by the formidable appearance of adult monkeys and noisy demonstrations arranged by males when they encounter real or imaginary danger. When they stumble upon something incomprehensible, they make disturbing sounds that can be replaced by a heart-rending scream. If the creature that caused the fright of the monkeys does not hastily retreat, the male grabs some branch in his teeth, stands on his hind legs, and tears it with his hands in a frenzy and throws it at the enemy. Then he begins to alternately beat his chest with his palms, making loud sounds, as if from hitting an empty barrel. Then, having run up on two legs, he gets down on all fours and rushes at the enemy, like a tank, making his way through the thickets, breaking everything along the way and hitting the ground with his palms. The attack ends with the attacker rushing past his opponent without harming him, or suddenly stopping three meters away from him, but does not attack unless the frightened enemy rushes to flight. But in this case, it does not come to murder. The male bites the fleeing enemy in the back of the body and in the legs, inflicting not very serious wounds.

Such demonstrations are arranged by males at the meeting of two herds and, having raged, calmly disperse. Africans know that gorillas only bite cowards. When attacked by a male, despite the horror inspired by an angry beast, you need to calmly stand, slightly turned away from the attacker, and in no case look into his eyes. If the members of his own herd displease the leader, he, clenching his teeth and sternly moving his eyebrows, casts a gaze at them. The guilty person immediately turns away (a look into the eyes means a challenge) and nods his head in confirmation of his humility. In more serious cases, the offender flops face down on the ground and, tucking all four paws under him, expresses devotion with his appearance. This is quite enough, and the leader calms down. Well, the recalcitrant, there is nothing to do, bites.

Gorillas have rich facial expressions and gestures. A nod of the head is not only an expression of humility, but also a common greeting - Kids invite their peers to play by clapping their palms on their chest, stomach, and on the tree trunk they climbed on. We now know much more about gorillas than about orangutans. They are easier to observe, because they live on the ground, and not in the crowns. Science received reliable data about them thanks to the work of two prominent American researchers: George B. Schaller, who lived in the African jungle for two years, and Dian Fossey, who tragically died at the hands of a poacher, spent thirteen years in the society of wild gorillas. This fearless woman managed to inspire such confidence in herself that the monkeys fearlessly came into direct contact with her and allowed her to communicate with the kids.

About a human

World Transformer Man

The world of inanimate nature is unusually complex. Isn't the structure of the matter of which the objects around us are amazing, and isn't the picture of the infinite cosmos majestic? Even more complex is the world of wildlife - plants and animals. But the highest stage in the development of life on Earth is man. He learned many of the innermost secrets of the environment and learned to control the phenomena of nature, to change them.

Take a closer look at the things you live among. Almost all of them are created or transformed by people. Our clothes, our houses, our factories and plants with their countless machines, railways, automobiles and airplanes, telegraph and telephone, radio and TV sets - all this is man-made; even plants and animals that people use to satisfy their needs, mankind has learned to improve: to breed new wonderful varieties of plants, improve animal breeds, etc.

But the most amazing achievement of man is the creation of that world that we call the world of spiritual phenomena: the world of science - knowledge about the surrounding reality, about the people themselves and human thinking; the world of arts - literature, music, dance, painting, sculpture, architecture.

No matter what we mentally direct our gaze to, in everything we find the stamp of man's labor and thought, his creative will.

Substance. Man not only looked into the world of the atom and unraveled many of the mysteries of its structure. He learned to divide, split the atom, control the energy hidden in it and turn one simple substance into another. Having studied the laws of construction of complex chemical compounds, man himself began to create materials with new properties.

What about our Earth? Is it possible to tell now about its geography, throwing off human activities? Canals built by man cut continents and connect seas, rivers change their course, the sands of barren deserts recede, and plants move far north by the hand of man. The face of the earth's surface is changing, and perhaps the time is not so far away when people, having forced the ice that binds the Earth's poles to melt, will regulate its climate.

Universe, space, the world of distant stars! Man opened the doors to this world for himself. The space laboratories-satellites built by him, spaceships with people on board are already flying outside our Earth.

The possibilities for the development of human strength, human genius are endless.

Man is a product of the development of nature and society

Truly an amazing creature - man! Since ancient times, people began to think about what a person is. They saw the great deeds and feats that he is capable of performing, and composed legends about these feats. They were amazed at the power of the human mind and understood that there are no creatures on Earth equal to man. But then people still knew almost nothing about the real nature of man. They thought that a person has an unearthly origin and that the main thing in him is his soul; it moves his mind, feelings and actions and belongs to a special, “other world”. The fantasy of people populated this other world with gods. People began to consider them the creators not only of all nature, but also of man himself, whom, unlike the animal, the gods allegedly endowed with an immortal soul, like themselves. Man began to seem to them a conductor of the power and will of the gods. The abilities inherent in man were called "gifts of the gods"; when a person managed to do something remarkable, they said: “God helped him”; when he failed or perished, they said, "It is God's will."

Our language still retains traces of these old beliefs.

As the practical activity of people developed, their knowledge of the world around them expanded more and more. Gradually, knowledge was accumulated about living organisms, the structure of the body of animals and humans. This is how special sciences began to take shape, which, first of all, met the needs of medicine, - anatomy and physiology animals and humans.

Comparing the structure of the body of various animals, scientists could not help but pay attention to the similarities between them. Step by step, a picture emerged of a gradual transition from simpler organisms to more complex ones and, finally, to man. This led to the greatest achievement of science: to the creation of the doctrine of gradual development - evolution animals, which was later extended to humans. As is known, the laws governing the process of evolution were discovered by the great naturalist Charles Darwin. Darwin scientifically explained the origin of not only different animal species, but also humans. It became quite obvious that the ancestors of man were especially highly developed, now extinct animals (the modern anthropoid apes are closest to them). So it was established that man has a natural, animal origin.

This was a huge achievement of science, which dealt a mortal blow to the tales of the divine origin of man.

However, not all human features could be understood as the result of the laws of biological evolution. It turned out that these laws are powerless to explain just those features of man that put him immeasurably higher than even the most highly developed representatives of the animal world: the ability to produce tools and use them for the purposeful impact on nature in the labor process, in production; the ability to use language to exchange thoughts and accumulated knowledge; the ability to create science and works of art.

The half-humans-half-monkeys who lived many tens of millennia ago, in the struggle with nature, were forced to unite in order to jointly produce the means for their existence. This is how human society arose, the basis of which was work- the production of goods necessary for the life of members of society.

When people began to work together and make tools and means of labor, they made them for specific purposes. The first reasonable human actions appeared, performed not with a bare hand, but with an armed tool, which greatly increased the strength and capabilities of a person; the actions of each person were coordinated with the actions of other members of the primitive community. In the process of labor, people had a need to communicate with each other. Gradually, in primitive communities, a sound language was formed, which, after hundreds of millennia, turned into articulate speech. Work and speech were the most important thing that turned people who had not yet completely left the animal state into real people.

In the future, the process of development of tools, means of production and relations between people, as well as the person himself, began to completely obey the action of new laws - laws of socio-historicaldevelopment. One of the main laws is as follows. Before engaging in science, art, philosophy, etc., people must eat, drink, have a dwelling, clothing. And for this you need to work, to produce material goods. It is the production activity of people, the relations between them that develop in the process of production, that determine the spiritual life of society, represent the basis on which government agencies, science, art, philosophy. When one method of production of material goods is replaced by another, more perfect one, it changes and socio-historical system society.

Thus, the material economic relations of people determine their public consciousness- those moral, political, scientific, philosophical ideas, theories, views by which people are guided in their activities. Every person lives in a historically defined society, belongs to a certain class, nation, and with the need to one degree or another assimilates the views of this society, class, nation, which guide the behavior of this person.

With a change in material production relations, people's consciousness changes, old ideas disappear and new ones arise, corresponding to new conditions, new social needs.

Thus, how people live, what kind of life they lead, who they become, what features and abilities they develop, depends, first of all, on the socio-historical conditions of their life, and not on the natural environment. The operation of the laws of biological evolution only prepared the appearance on Earth of people who united for joint work.

These laws explain how man originated, how he appeared on Earth, but the further development of society and man himself began to be governed by socio-historical laws. This allowed a person to develop in himself such features that cannot appear in any animal. Why? Yes, because the very process, the very path of people's development has become completely different. Let's try to understand this accumulated by countless generations of the animal's ancestors.

However, the behavior of animals is determined not only by their inherited instincts, but also by the experience acquired by each individual animal in life. The brain of an animal not only "remembers" the developmental achievements of previous generations. He is also capable of accumulating new, individual experience that develops in the course of the life of each individual animal. Simply put, animals are able to learn to adapt their inherited behavior to changing living conditions, sometimes quite difficult.

What is the most essential in animals: their instinctive behavior inherited from previous generations or behavior acquired under the influence of their own, individual experience? Of course, the main basis on which the behavior of any animal is built is the experience inherited by it.

On the contrary, everything that an animal acquires during own life, is only a modification of the species experience inherited by him, the instincts inherent in him.

Accumulated by generations

Every animal is born with certain abilities and instincts. Take a closer look at the behavior, for example, of a cat. Everyone knows how sensitively she listens to the slightest rustle, how, when a moving object appears, she first becomes alert, and then quickly rushes after it. This is an inborn (instinctive) behavior observed in all cats. It is very characteristic of these animals and plays a significant role in their life, in adaptation to the environment.

What does it represent instinctive behaviordenie animals? This is a behavior developed in the process of evolution. It consolidates the experience accumulated by previous generations. Through the operation of the laws of heredity, it is transmitted to each individual animal belonging to a given species. In other words, this species behavior, which expresses the experience of adaptation to the environment.

relay of humanity

This is not how human development works. Each person is partly endowed with innate instincts and inclinations, otherwise he could not live and develop. But this is not what is decisive, this is not what makes him a real person.

Man is sometimes characterized as a being who makes and uses tools, as a being with speech, as a rational being. Hence comes and Latin name species "man * -" homo sapiens ", which means Humanreasonable. All these are really characteristic features of a person. But does he have all these features from birth, are they transmitted to him from his ancestors according to the laws of heredity?

It is easy to see that this is not the case. Man is not born endowed with the instinct to use tools and tools. Both the tools themselves and the ability to use them are the product of a long process of the historical development of mankind, the result of the activity of many generations of people. But these skills are not fixed by the brain in such a way that they can be hereditarily passed on to subsequent generations. Each person of each new generation has to learn these methods, to master them in the course of his life. The same is true for speech. No person has the innate ability to understand the language spoken by many generations of his ancestors, much less to speak that language.

All these achievements, acquired during the period of the socio-historical development of mankind, are transmitted to people of new generations not due to the operation of the laws of heredity (only such traits as, for example, eye color or certain congenital general properties nervous system), but quite differently. People of each new generation from birth are surrounded by objects and phenomena that are products of the activities of previous generations. These phenomena include both language and the concepts and knowledge expressed by the language, as well as various works of art. For a very young child, these are just physical objects and phenomena. But already very early the child enters into practical communication with the people around him. In the process of communicating with them, he learns to use the things around him, learns to understand the speech addressed to him and speak, masters the language of those around him, assimilates it. Gradually, he masters an ever wider range of creations of human hands, collective human thought and human feelings; he develops truly human abilities and properties. This is how he becomes a real person.

The scientific literature describes several rare cases when small children grew up in the forests, among animals, never seeing a single person, not a single human object. What were these children? In addition to their external appearance, they had nothing human. They were not, they said, incapable of expedient use of tools, they did not have even the simplest concepts of their surroundings. They possessed only some of the instincts they inherited from the distant animal ancestors of man and the individual experience of adaptation to the natural environment formed on their basis. Such cases especially clearly show that a person becomes a person only among people, only by living in human society.

We can say that every person learns to be a person. To live and create, it is not enough for him what nature has given him. He must still master what has been achieved in the process of the historical development of human society. And he finds all this in the world of things, phenomena among which he lives; in what he hears from other people; in the books he reads; in the pictures that he admires ... But not everything can be mastered by a person on his own, without the help of others. This would require not one, but many human lives. Therefore, he is actively trained - first at home or in a nursery and kindergarten, then at school, at work, at an institute or university. But at the same time, whether he studies on his own or at school, he always learns myself.

And he continues to learn all his life - working, meeting people and even relaxing.

Before man is a whole ocean of wealth, accumulated over the centuries by countless generations of people - the only creatures inhabiting our planet who have become creators. Human generations die, but many things created by them, accumulated knowledge and skills pass to the people of the next generations, who multiply and improve them - and thus carry on the baton of mankind.

Photos and diagrams

Monkeys:

Diagram of human and ape evolution.

The evolution of the shape of the skull.

Plesianthropus Sinanthropus Neanderthal Cro-Magnon

Stone tools of fossil people (from top to bottom):

scraper, tips, chopped.

margin-top:0cm" type="circle"> Children's Encyclopedia (Vol. 7, "Man") Biology (Avanta +), Vol. 2

Evolution

from lat. evolutio - "deployment" natural process of development of wildlife

First used the term "evolution" in the modern sense

Charles Bonnet (1720-1793)

Carl Linnaeus

• creationism (from lat. creation - creation) - the main forms of the organic world (life), humanity, the planet Earth, as well as the world as a whole, are considered as directly created by the Creator or God

The merits of C. Linnaeus

• "King of Nerds" , "Father of Systematics"

• definition of a concept species

• putting into active use binary nomenclature

• establishing a clear subordination between systematic (taxonomic) categories

• Three kingdoms: Plants, Animals, Minerals divided into classes, orders, genera and species

• Identified 24 classes of plants, 6 classes of animals

• Introduced 1000 terms, 1200 new genera, 8000 new plant species

In 1735, the book "The System of Nature" was published.

K. Linnaeus's mistakes

• The classification is artificial
• Metaphysical idea of ​​the origin of species - their immutability
• Initial expediency

• Late in life admitted that species can change

Table of the Animal Kingdom from the first edition of Systema Naturae (1735)

Jean Baptiste Lamarck

• the doctrine of the origin of organisms from each other by secular modification is a particular application to the organic world of the general idea of ​​evolution or the gradual development and complication of everything that exists
• 1809 "Philosophy of Zoology"

Identified 14 classes of animals at 6 levels of gradation according to the degree of complication of the circulatory and nervous systems

The merit of J. B. Lamarck

• Introduced the term "biology"

• Theory "Gradations"

• First theory of evolution

The driving forces of evolution (according to Lamarck)

• Inner desire for progress
• Influence of the environment (exercise or non-exercise of organs)
• Inheritance of favorable traits

Mistakes by J.B. Lamarck

• Gradation is influenced by the desire for self-improvement
• Fitness occurs as a result of appropriate changes in response to environmental influences.
• Only "acquired" traits are inherited

Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

House in Shrewsbury (England), where Charles Darwin was born

C. Darwin's father

Robert Waring Darwin

Ch. Darwin's mother

Susanna Darwin

Prerequisites for the emergence of the theory of Ch. Darwin

• Discoveries in biology

• cellular structure of organisms - R. Hooke, A. Leeuwenhoek
• the similarity of animal embryos - K. Baer
• discoveries in the field of comparative anatomy and paleontology - J. Cuvier and others.

• The works of geologist Ch. Lyell on the evolution of the Earth's surface under the influence of natural causes(t, wind, precipitation, etc.)
• Development of capitalism, agriculture
• Creation of new breeds of animals and plant varieties, development of breeding
• 1831-1836 - Beagle round the world

Around the world on the Beagle

1831-1836

Darwin returns from a round-the-world trip as a staunch supporter of views on the variability of species

Importance of artificial selection for the creation of Darwin's theory

• artificial selection - the process of creating new breeds (varieties) through the systematic selection and reproduction of individuals with valuable traits for humans

• From the analysis of the huge material on the creation of breeds and varieties, Darwin extracted the principle of artificial selection and based on it created his evolutionary doctrine.

The creative role of artificial selection

• individuals selected by man for reproduction will pass on their traits to their descendants ( heredity )

• the diversity of offspring is explained by different combinations of traits from parents and mutations ( hereditary (according to Darwin indeterminate) variability )

Creation of evolutionary theory

1842 - the beginning of work on the book "The Origin of Species"

1858 - A. Wallace, while on a trip to the Malay Archipelago, wrote an article "On the desire of varieties to an unlimited deviation from the original type", which contained theoretical provisions similar to those of Darwin.

1858 C. Darwin received his paper from A. R. Wallace.

Charles Darwin

(1809-1882, England)

Alfred Wallace

(1823-1913, England)

Creation of evolutionary theory

1858 – On July 1, at a special meeting of the Linnean Society, the concepts of Ch. Darwin and A. Wallace on the emergence of species through natural selection were presented

1859 - First edition of On the Origin of Species, 1250 copies

The main provisions of Darwin's theory

1 . All types of living organisms that exist on Earth have never been created by anyone

2. Species of living organisms arose naturally and, after the emergence, were progressively improved and transformed in accordance with environmental conditions

3. The transformation of species occurs on the basis of heredity and variability of living organisms and natural selection constantly acting in nature

4. Natural selection in nature is carried out on the basis of complex relationships of organisms both with each other and with adverse environmental conditions. These relationships represent a struggle for existence.

5. The result of natural selection is the emergence of fitness and, on this basis, the diversity of species of living organisms in nature.

• All creatures have a certain level of individual variability
• Traits from parents are passed on to offspring
• Each type of organism is capable of unlimited reproduction (there are 3,000 seeds in a poppy box, an elephant brings up to 6 baby elephants in a lifetime, but the offspring of 1 pair in 750 years = 19 million individuals)
• a lack of life resources leads to a struggle for existence
• In the struggle for existence, the most adapted individuals survive.

Darwinian concept of natural selection

• Material for evolution - indefinite variability
• Natural selection is a consequence of the struggle for existence

Forms of struggle for existence

Fight against adverse conditions (t, lack of water and food, etc.)

Interspecific (between individuals of different species) )

Intraspecific (between individuals of the same species)

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Systematics is a section of biology dedicated to the description, designation and classification by groups (taxa) of all existing and extinct organisms, and the establishment of family ties between them.

Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) Principles of systematics: Binary nomenclature (double species name), for example, Homo sapiens Hierarchy (subordination), for example: empire over kingdom kingdom sub kingdom, etc. Founder of the principles of systematics Swedish naturalist, physician

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An example of the systematic position of animals

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Species - a set of individuals similar in structure, giving fertile offspring

He created the first system, but artificial, because. I was looking for similarities in organisms, not relatedness. The basis is the structure of the stamens: shape, location, size. The view is constant from the moment of creation.

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Created a flower clock