Evolutionary doctrine is the sum of all ideas about laws, mechanisms of changes occurring in organic nature. According to him, all currently existing species of organisms have evolved from their distant "relatives" through a long change. It deals with the analysis of how the development of individual organisms occurs (ontogenesis), considers the development paths of integral groups of organisms (phylogenesis) and their adaptation.
Evolutionary doctrine is rooted in antiquity, where naturalists,
philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome (Aristotle, Democritus, Anaxagoras ...) expressed their assumptions about the development and transformation of organisms. However, these findings were not based on scientific knowledge and were purely guesswork. In the Middle Ages, the development of this teaching was stagnant. This was due to the dominance of religious dogmas and scholasticism. So, in the Christian world for a long time the creationist point of view was in the lead. Despite this, some scientists expressed their opinion about the existence of monsters, as evidenced by the finds of fossil remains.
In the process of accumulating facts in the 18th century, a new direction appeared - transformism, in the framework of which the variability of species was studied. Representatives of the teachings were such scientists as J. Buffoni, E. Darwin, E. Geoffrey Saint-Illervo. Their evolutionary doctrine in the form of evidence had two facts: the presence of transitional interspecific forms, the similarity of the structure of animals and plants in the same group. However, none of these figures spoke about the reasons for the changes.
And only in 1809 did the evolutionary teachings of Lamarck appear, which was
reflected in the book "Philosophy of Zoology." Here for the first time the question was raised about the causes of changes in species. He believed that species themselves were changing due to the changing environment. Moreover, he introduced gradations, i.e. transitions from lower to higher forms. This evolutionary development, according to Lamarck, is inherent in all living things and proceeds from the pursuit of perfection.
Observations of the natural world led him to two main points, which are reflected in the law of "non-exercise - exercise." According to him, organs develop as they are used, after which there was an “inheritance of favorable properties”, i.e. favorable signs passed from generation to generation, and subsequently either their development continued or they disappeared. However, Lamarck’s work was not appreciated in the scientific world until the publication of the book by C. Darwin “On the Origin of Species”. The arguments presented in it in favor of evolutionary development made it very popular. However, this scientist was a supporter of the heritability of acquired characters. However, the contradictions found were so serious that they contributed to the revival of Lamarckism as Neolamarckism.
Already after a lot of time, research by biologists led to the appearance of a synthetic evolutionary doctrine. (STE). It does not have a clear date of origin and a specific author and is a collective work of scientists. Despite the fact that the authors had a lot of divergences of views, some provisions were not in doubt: the
elementary unit of evolution is represented by a local population; material for evolutionary development is recombination and mutational variation; the main reason for the development of adaptations is natural selection; neutral traits are formed due to
gene drift and some other positions.
Currently, a large number of scientists use the concept of "modern evolutionary theory." It does not require a single concept of evolution, and at the same time its main achievement is the fact in which saltation changes alternate with gradual ones.