Evolution: Components and Mechanisms introduces the many recent discoveries and insights that have added to the discipline of organic evolution, and combines them with the key topics needed to gain a fundamental understanding of the mechanisms of evolution. Each chapter covers an important topic or factor pertinent to a modern understanding of evolutionary theory, allowing easy access to particular topics for either study or review. Many chapters are cross-referenced. Modern evolutionary theory has expanded significantly within only the past two to three decades. In recent times the definition of a gene has evolved, the definition of organic evolution itself is in need of some modification, the number of known mechanisms of evolutionary change has increased dramatically, and the emphasis placed on opportunity and contingency has increased. This book synthesizes these changes and presents many of the novel topics in evolutionary theory in an accessible and thorough format. This book is an ideal, up-to-date resource for biologists, geneticists, evolutionary biologists, developmental biologists, and researchers in, as well as students and academics in these areas and professional scientists in many subfields of biology. - Discusses many of the mechanisms responsible for evolutionary change - Includes an appendix that provides a brief synopsis of these mechanisms with most discussed in greater detail in respective chapters - Aids readers in their organization and understanding of the material by addressing the basic concepts and topics surrounding organic evolution - Covers some topics not typically addressed, such as opportunity, contingency, symbiosis, and progress

This volume brings together diverse Asian religious perspectives to address critical issues in the encounter between tradition and modern western evolutionary thought. Such thought encompasses the biological theories of Charles Darwin, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Earnest Haeckel, Thomas Huxley, and later “neo-Darwinians,” as well as the more sociological evolutionary theories of thinkers such as Herbert Spencer, Pyotr Kropotkin, and Henri Bergson. The essays in this volume cover responses from Hindu, Jain, Buddhist (Chinese, Japanese, and Indo-Tibetan), Confucian, Daoist, and Muslim traditions. These responses come from the decades immediately after publication of The Origin of Species up to the present, with attention being paid to earlier perspectives and teachings within a tradition that have affected responses to Darwinism and western evolutionary thought in general. The book focuses on three critical issues: the struggle for survival and the moral implications read into it; genetic variation and its seeming randomness as related to the problems of meaning and purpose; and the nature of humankind and human exceptionalism. Each essay deals with one or more of the three issues within the context of a specific tradition.

A complete account of evolutionary thought in the social, environmental and policy sciences, creating bridges with biology.

The book “Organic Evolution”, with several novel features, is comprehensively written with latest advances in the subject and is divided in seven chapters. Chapter 1 of the book describes the environment of primitive earth and how it was essential for the origin of first life form. Chapter 2 includes evolutionary theories and supporting evidences in favour of evolution. The role of population genetics in evolution of gene pools of population is in Chapter 3. The concept of species and modes of speciation, how new species originates and how much genetic change is required for speciation is discussed in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 provides the essential information needed to understand molecular evolution and how molecules are reliable tools for molecular systematics and in reconstruction of phylogenies. Chapter 6 of the book describes vertebrate diversity and vertebrate evolution primarily focusing on Primates and the evolution of Homo sapiens. Finally, Chapter 7 is about the origin and evolution of Angiosperms. The language and contents of this book are made so simple and easy that even a student with a minimal knowledge of Life Sciences will be able to understand the essence of evolution.This book has been designed mainly to provide the most fundamental and updated knowledge of the subject to undergraduate and postgraduate students in various streams of Life Sciences- Botany, Zoology, Biotechnology, Microbiology, Biochemistry, Agriculture etc; of Indian Universities. Besides this book will be beneficial to student’s preparing for CSIR NET Life Sciences, GATE Life Sciences, ICMR Life Sciences, IAS, IFS and other State Civil service examinations.