In: Biology
Describe how the present-day theory of evolution was developed?
The theory of evolution was first stated by Darwin. After that many advancements happened in the methodology of evolution study. Deatiled study of DNA and genomics gave rise to the new field now known as genetic (synthetic) theory of evolution. This theory is also regarded as modern theory of evolution. Genomic study of different organisms and their origins in past decades have resulted in huge genomic databases. Nowadays the evolutionary studies are more about comparing the new genomic findings with this database. For example, scientists discovered a fossil in some cold region. The first work is to extract DNA of the sample and get the gene sequence of the fossil. This gene sequence is studied using bioinformatics tools to map the evolutionary pathway of the organism. Thus development of sopashicated instruments changed the perspective of study of evolution. Currently the scientists are busy researching about the mechanisms of evolution, the field commonly known as evolutionary developmental biology. It focuses on discovering and understanding genetic changes that alter embryonic development and lead to new features in species lines. Thus study of genetics and modern bioinstruments have highly contributed to the development of present day theory of evolution.