October 27, 2009 | Posted by maneerat
Evolution, as we have seen in a previous chapter, is another word for race-history. It means the ceaseless process of Becoming, linking generation to generation of living creatures. The Doctrine of Evolution states the fact that the present is the child of the past and the parent of the future. It comes to this, that the living plants and animals we know are descended from ancestors on the whole simpler, and these from others likewise simpler, and so on, back and back—till we reach the first living creatures, of which, unfortunately, we know nothing. Evolution is a process of racial change in a definite direction, whereby new forms arise, take root, and flourish, alongside of or in the place of their ancestors, which were in most cases rather simpler in structure and behaviour.
Categories: THE OUTLINE OF SCIENCE | 
Tags: Amphibians, Definite Direction, Fingers And Toes, Fishes, Flesh And Blood, Flying Dragons, Generation To Generation, History Of The Earth, Involution, Lizards, Mammals, Modern Man, Natural Inheritance, Plants And Animals, Primitive Man, Profusion, Race History, Rapid Changes, Sea Serpents, Social Heritage | 
No Comments »
October 27, 2009 | Posted by maneerat
Progress in Evolution
There has often been slipping back and degeneracy in the course of evolution, but the big fact is that there has been progress. For millions of years Life has been slowly creeping upwards, and if we compare the highest animals—Birds and Mammals—with their predecessors, we must admit that they are more controlled, more masters of their fate, with more mentality. Evolution is on the whole integrative; that is to say, it makes against instability and disorder, and towards harmony and progress. Even in the rise of Birds and Mammals we can discern that the evolutionary process was making towards a fuller embodiment or expression of what Man values most—control, freedom, understanding, and love. The advance of animal life through the ages has been chequered, but on the whole it has been an advance towards increasing fullness, freedom, and fitness of life. In the study of this advance—the central fact of Organic Evolution—there is assuredly much for Man’s instruction and much for his encouragement.
Categories: THE OUTLINE OF SCIENCE | Tags: Amphibians, Animal Life, Animals Birds, Central Fact, Croco, Elephant, Embodiment, Encouragement, Evidences Of Evolution, Evolution Theory, Fate, Harmony, Law Of Gravitation, Mammals, Mentality, Organic Evolution, Pedigree, Predecessors, Reptiles, Validity | No Comments »
October 27, 2009 | Posted by maneerat
Giant Amphibians and Coal-measures
The Carboniferous period was marked by a mild moist climate and a luxuriant vegetation in the swampy low grounds. It was a much less strenuous time than the Devonian period; it was like a very long summer. There were no trees of the type we see now, but there were forests of club-mosses and horsetails which grew to a gigantic size compared with their pigmy representatives of to-day. In these forests the jointed-footed invaders of the dry land ran riot in the form of centipedes, spiders, scorpions, and insects, and on these the primeval Amphibians fed. The appearance of insects made possible a new linkage of far-reaching importance, namely, the cross-fertilisation of flowering plants by their insect visitors, and from this time onwards it may be said that flowers and their visitors have evolved hand in hand. Cross-fertilisation is much surer by insects than by the wind, and cross-fertilisation is more advantageous than self-fertilisation because it promotes both fertility and plasticity. It was probably in this period that coloured flowers—attractive to insect-visitors—began to justify themselves as beauty became useful, and began to relieve the monotonous green of the horsetail and club-moss forests, which covered great tracts of the earth for millions of years. In the Carboniferous forests there were also land-snails, representing one of the minor invasions of the dry land, tending on the whole to check vegetation. They, too, were probably preyed upon by the Amphibians, some of which attained a large size. Each age has had its giants, and those of the Carboniferous were Amphibians called Labyrinthodonts, some of which were almost as big as donkeys. It need hardly be said that it was in this period that most of the Coal-measures were laid down by the immense accumulation of the spores and debris of the club-moss forests. Ages afterwards, it was given to man to tap this great source of energy—traceable back to the sunshine of millions of years ago. Even then it was true that no plant or animal lives or dies to itself!
Categories: THE OUTLINE OF SCIENCE | Tags: Amphibians, Carboniferous Period, Centipedes, Club Moss, Club Mosses, Coal Measures, Coloured Flowers, Devonian Period, Fertilisation, Flowering Plants, Gigantic Size, Horsetail, Horsetails, Immense Accumulation, Insect Visitors, Land Animals, Land Snails, Luxuriant Vegetation, Moist Climate, Source Of Energy | No Comments »
October 27, 2009 | Posted by maneerat
The Rock Record
How do we know when the various classes of animals and plants were established on the earth? How do we know the order of their appearance and the succession of their advances? The answer is: by reading the Rock Record. In the course of time the crust of the earth has been elevated into continents and depressed into ocean-troughs, and the surface of the land has been buckled up into mountain ranges and folded in gentler hills and valleys. The high places of the land have been weathered by air and water in many forms, and the results of the weathering have been borne away by rivers and seas, to be laid down again elsewhere as deposits which eventually formed sandstones, mudstones, and similar sedimentary rocks. Much of the material of the original crust has thus been broken down and worked up again many times over, and if the total thickness of the sedimentary rocks is added up it amounts, according to some geologists, to a total of 67 miles. In most cases, however, only a small part of this thickness is to be seen in one place, for the deposits were usually formed in limited areas at any one time.
Categories: THE OUTLINE OF SCIENCE | Tags: Air And Water, Amphibians, Animals And Plants, Continents, Crust Of The Earth, Devonian Period, Fossils, Geologist, Geologists, Hills And Valleys, Mountain Ranges, Plants And Animals, Procession, Sedimentary Rocks, Sediments, Strata, Succession, Troughs, Vicious Circle, Weathering | No Comments »
October 27, 2009 | Posted by maneerat
5. The terrestrial haunt has been invaded age after age by contingents from the sea or from the freshwaters. We must recognise the worm invasion, which led eventually to the making of the fertile soil, the invasion due to air-breathing Arthropods, which led eventually to the important linkage between flowers and their insect visitors, and the invasion due to air-breathing Amphibians, which led eventually to the higher terrestrial animals and to the development of intelligence and family affection. Besides these three great invasions, there were minor ones such as that leading to land-snails, for there has been a widespread and persistent tendency among aquatic animals to try to possess the dry land.
Categories: THE OUTLINE OF SCIENCE | Tags: Aeration, Air Breathing, Air Tubes, Amphibians, Aquatic Animals, Arthropods, Family Affection, Fertile Soil, Freshwaters, Great Invasions, Insect Visitors, Intense Activity, Internal Surfaces, Land Snails, Locomotion, Persistent Tendency, Predominance, Substratum, Terrestrial Animal, Terrestrial Animals | No Comments »