迁移——达尔文进化论的一个基本命题

生物迁移命题是由Ｄａｒｗｉｎ（１８５９）提出来的,他在《物种起源》一书中认为,一个物种只能有一个起源中心;在条件允许的前提下,它会从这个中心迁移到力所能及的地区。当Ｂｕｃｋｍａｎ（１９２２）的“迁移飞机”理论问世后,迁移研究几乎陷于停顿状态５０年。越来越多的事实证明了达尔文迁移思想的生命力。经常见至的化石“穿时”现象和时代差异,大量生物地理的新资料,使人们从不可知论的阴影下逐渐摆脱出来。８０年代以     

达尔文-科学进化论的奠基者

2009年, 时逢英国博物学家查尔斯·罗伯特·达尔文(Charles Robert Darwin,1809-1882)诞辰200周年, 进化论光辉著作《物种起源》发表150周年。历史的发展不断认证达尔文的《物种起源》一书是生物学史上不朽的经典著作, 如今《物种起源》所提及的许多观点已成为人尽皆知的常识, 并且还在不断地发展、完善, 为人类认识自然和自身发展指点方向。文章追忆了先贤的卓越科学贡献和科学探索精神, 并对百年来科学进步和进化论的发展重要成果进行了简要的评述, 指出了进化论未来研究的重点问题。     

N.K. Kol'tsov's Theory of Synthetic Biology

The state of theoretical biology in the twentieth century is characterized, as well as the appearance and development of N.K. Kol'tsov's scientific program, his original methodology of interdisciplinary synthesis, and, based on it, the concept of theoretical biology.     

Mode and tempo in the evolution of socio-political organization: reconciling 'Darwinian' and 'Spencerian' evolutionary approaches in anthropology

Traditional investigations of the evolution of human social and political institutions trace their ancestry back to nineteenth century social scientists such as Herbert Spencer, and have concentrated on the increase in socio-political complexity over time. More recent studies of cultural evolution have been explicitly informed by Darwinian evolutionary theory and focus on the transmission of cultural traits between individuals. These two approaches to investigating cultural change are often seen as incompatible. However, we argue that many of the defining features and assumptions of 'Spencerian' cultural evolutionary theory represent testable hypotheses that can and should be tackled within a broader 'Darwinian' framework. In this paper we apply phylogenetic comparative techniques to data from Austronesian-speaking societies of Island South-East Asia and the Pacific to test hypotheses about the mode and tempo of human socio-political evolution. We find support for three ideas often associated with Spencerian cultural evolutionary theory: (i) political organization has evolved through a regular sequence of forms, (ii) increases in hierarchical political complexity have been more common than decreases, and (iii) political organization has co-evolved with the wider presence of hereditary social stratification.     

Art in global context: An evolutionary/functionalist perspective for the 21<Superscript>st</Superscript> century

Regarding the arts as something peopledo — as behaviors, rather than the residue or artifacts of behavior — makes possible a theoretical grounding about their nature and importance, an endeavor that current anthropology of art has largely abandoned. A reconsideration of the suspect and largely discarded terms “functionalism” and “evolutionism” is presented in light of current evolutionary thinking. It is suggested that a contemporary reformulation of these concepts, illustrated by the author's Darwinian or “adaptationist” perspective on art, supports aims and claims of current anthropology of art, and contributes new focus and direction to its endeavors.