The Theory of Evolution is the result of research, still in development, initiated by the legacy left by the English scientist Charles Robert Darwin and by the British naturalist Alfred Russell Wallace.
In his research, which took place in the nineteenth century, Darwin sought to establish a comparative study between related species that lived in different regions. In addition, he noted the existence of similarities between living and endangered animals. From there, he concluded that the biological characteristics of living beings undergo a dynamic process in which factors of a natural order would be responsible for modifying living organisms. At the same time, he raised the idea that living organisms are in constant competition and, from it, only the beings better prepared for the imposed environmental conditions could survive.
Realizing that these were controversial discoveries, and that contradicted ideas considered absolute, such as that species were immutable, Darwin was afraid to publicize them. Wallace, who admired from afar the prestige of the famous naturalist, sent him some of his writings about ideas he was developing. Surprisingly, both were studying the same phenomenon - a finding that encouraged Darwin to give up his secret and publish, along with Wallace, his findings in 1858.
Relying on such premises, this theory states that man and ape have the same ancestry, from which these and other species developed over time. However, this is not to say, as many claim, that Darwin assumed that man is a descendant of the ape. In his work, The Origin of Species, he suggests that man and ape, because of their biological similarities, have the same ascendant in common.
Based on these statements and with other areas of science, such as Genetics and Molecular Biology, several members of the scientific community, over the years, took on the challenge of understanding the process of variation and adaptation of populations over time, and the emergence of new species from another preexisting.
As for one of the studied species, Homo sapiens sapiens, which appeared approximately 120 thousand years ago, it is known that it is related to ancient hominids. This group, which emerged more than four million years ago, includes, in addition to us, the homo habilis (2.4 - 1.5 million years) o homo erectus (1.8 - 300 thousand years), the Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, with about 230 to 30 thousand years of existence, and several others. An interesting finding is that hominids of different species already coexisted in the same period.
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In everyday life, we often refer to the expression "theory" as something superficial, simple, a speculation. However, in scientific investigations, the term refers to a hypothesis confirmed by numerous experiments, with a high degree of precision, for a long time. So these are worthy of quite a bit of credibility. The Evolution Theory, as well as the Universal Gravitation Theory, are some examples.
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*Image credits: Nicku / shutterstock
By Rainer Sousa, Graduated in History
and Mariana Araguaia, Graduated in Biology
