MPSC Rajyaseva 2014 CSAT — Question 8

the human species. Our closest relatives are Chimpanzee, Gorilla and Orang-utan. Similarities between man and other animal forms were identified by Linnaeus who grouped man, the great ape and monkey in a single order, primates. The three main theories of evolution are Lamarckism, Darwinism and Synthetic theory. Lamarck is chiefly remembered for his belief in the inheritability of acquired characters which is disputed. But he is credited in the history of evolutionary thought for recognizing and stating for the first time that evolution is a universal truth covering all forms of life and it is a gradual and an incessant process. The scientific propagation of the theory of evolution was mainly the work of Charles Darwin. He said, that human evolution occurs through the process of natural selection. The main points of this theory are struggle for existence, variation, survival of the fittest and natural selection. Darwins natural selection serves as the corner stone of the modern synthesis but the mutation theory, mendelian genetics and the statistics of population dynamics are also very important components of its foundation. The basic postulate of the synthetic theory is that evolution proceeds principally as a result of the interaction between five indispensable processes mutation, change in the chromosome number and structure, genetic recombination, natural selection and reproductive isolation. This is also called Neo Darwinism.