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Evolution

  • Chapter
Biophysics

Abstract

The idea of a biosphere subjected to perpetual change and evolution according to its own laws already had a firm place in the intellectual world of the late 18th and the early 19th century. The real break-through of the concept of evolution was then due to Charles Darwin, mainly because of the careful and systematic studies which he presented to the scientific community in his world-famous book On the origin of species in 1859. Darwin formulated his theory from the rich experience of his observations, but with no knowledge of microscopic and submicroscopic details of the structures and mechanisms of the living world. According to Darwin’s theory, the driving forces of evolution are the potent cooperation of small variations of organisms which originate from accidental changes in the process of replication or multiplication, and natural selection by the demands of a competitive environment. In the second half of the last century it was still an idle question even to seek deeper causes of these two principles, to say nothing of directing conclusive ex-periments at a clarification of the basic mechanisms.

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Authors
  1. Peter Schuster
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  2. Hans Kuhn
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  3. Jürg Waser
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  4. Klaus Dose
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  5. Karl Sigmund
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Max-Planck-Institut für Biochemie, Am Klopferspitz, D-8033, Martinsried, Germany

    Walter Hoppe

  2. Institut für Biophysik, Universität Gießen Strahlenzentrum, Leihgesterner Weg 217, D-6300, Gießen, Germany

    Wolfgang Lohmann

  3. Fakultät für Biologie, Universität Konstanz, Postfach 5560, D-7750, Konstanz, Germany

    Hubert Markl

  4. Institut für Botanik und Mikrobiologie, Technischen Universität München, Arcisstraße 21, D-8000, München 2, Germany

    Hubert Ziegler

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Schuster, P., Kuhn, H., Waser, J., Dose, K., Sigmund, K. (1982). Evolution. In: Hoppe, W., Lohmann, W., Markl, H., Ziegler, H. (eds) Biophysics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-68877-5_17

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