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Evolution. The Creative Power of Selection

An instructive introduction to the theory of evolution and its applications in biology, physics, chemistry, geology and humanities. The author shows that evolution is a physical process, occurring in geological time dimension, describes how the Darwin’s theory of natural selection works in immunology, neurobiology, sociology as well as in certain aspects of culture and political institutions. He also shows the effects achieved through the action of selection in different areas of biological and social life.

He discusses such problems as: the ambiguity of the term “theory of evolution”, the falsifiability of evolutionary hypotheses, connection between evolution and thermodynamics, the concept of reductionism, methodological background of phylogenetics, cladistics, evolutionary developmental biology and homeotic genes, as well as the cumulative nature of social and cultural evolution.

Keywords: natural selection, selection, speciation, tree of life, altruism, democracy, cultural evolution.

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Prof. dr hab. Jerzy Dzik – member of the Polish Academy of Sciences, palaeontologist. He works at the Faculty of Biology at the University of Warsaw and at the Institute of Paleobiology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw.

His numerous scientific works concern the anatomy of the first Precambrian animals, the early evolution of invertebrates and primeval chordates, the mechanisms of the evolution of colony organisms and the larval development of mollusks, the oldest dinosaurs, as well as the methodology of recreating the course of evolution on the basis of fossil material.

University lecturer, scientific cartoonist, popularizer of science and author of many books.