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"Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution" is a 1973 essay by the evolutionary biologist and Russian Orthodox Christian Theodosius Dobzhansky, criticising anti-evolution creationism and espousing theistic evolution. The essay was first published in ''American Biology Teacher'', volume 35, pp. 125–129.〔; reprinted in 〕 Dobzhansky first used the title statement, in a slight variation, in a 1964 presidential address to the American Society of Zoologists, "Biology, Molecular and Organismic", to assert the importance of organismic biology in response to the challenge of the rising field of molecular biology.〔. The phrase appears on page 449 as "nothing makes sense in biology except in the light of evolution, ''sub specie evolutionis''."〕 The term "light of evolution"—or ''sub specie evolutionis''—had been used earlier by biologist Julian Huxley.〔 〕 == Overview == Dobzhansky opens with a critique of Shaikh Abdul Aziz bin Baz, the then Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, for holding a belief based on scripture that the Sun revolves around the Earth. Dobzhansky asserts that "it is ludicrous to mistake the Bible and the Koran for primers of natural science. They treat of matters even more important: the meaning of man and his relations to God."〔 He then criticizes one of the early antievolutionists, P. H. Gosse, who had proposed that fossils were created in the places where they were found, for blasphemously implying that God is deceitful.〔 As he had said in his earlier presidential address, "If the living world has not arisen from common ancestors by means of an evolutionary process, then the fundamental unity of living things is a hoax and their diversity is a joke."〔 These two themes of the unity of living things and the diversity of life provide central themes for his essay. Addressing the diversity of life on Earth, Dobzhansky asks whether God was joking when he created different species for different environments. This diversity becomes reasonable and understandable, however, if Creation takes place not by the whim of the Creator "but by evolution propelled by natural selection."〔 He further illustrates this diversity from his own investigation of the widely diverse range of species of fruit flies in Hawaii. Either the Creator, "in a fit of absent mindedness" created many species of fruit flies in Hawaii, or the fruit flies that arrived on the islands, diversified to fill a wide range of vacant ecological niches.〔 He illustrates the unity of living things using the molecular sequence of cytochrome C, which Emanuel Margoliash and Walter M. Fitch had shown to be similar in a wide range of species, including monkeys, tuna, kangaroos, and yeast.〔 This unity is further illustrated with by the similarity of the embryos of different species. Either God deliberately arranged things "to mislead sincere seekers of truth"〔 or these similarities are the result of evolution. Dobzhansky concludes that scripture and science are two different things: "It is a blunder to mistake the Holy Scriptures for elementary textbooks of astronomy, geology, biology, and anthropology."〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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