Abstract
Rich communities of plants, animals, fungi and microbes are a matter of course for us. But how is it possible that more complex organisms evolved almost three billion years after the origin of life? Does the complexity of organisms increase over time, and if so, what rules does evolution follow? Can all this be somehow combined with the observation that part of the evolutionary lineages "freezes" over time and thus reduces their variability? The book you are holding addresses these issues.
In the book, we set out on a ride through the wild waters of modern evolutionary biology. The first part of the publication summarizes the issue of evolutionary trends.
In addition to the "heretical" question of whether evolution can be directed to some degree, it also deals with evidence for various large-scale evolutionary trends. In the second part, the author shows that evolutionary biology is definitely not a dead, thoroughly explored science.
One of the centerpieces of modern evolutionary thought has become the idea that not only the organisms themselves evolve, but also the processes that canalise their further possible changes based on their previous evolutionary experience. In other words, that there is an evolution of evolvability.
In the third and last part, the book deals with the theory of frozen evolution proposed by Czech biologist Jaroslav Flegr. In line with research in the field of evolution of evolvability, this theory allows to explain decreasing variability of a large part of evolutionary lineages.
Moreover, the same phenomenon can lead to a number of mysterious evolutionary trends, including a continuous increase in the highest level of organismal complexity.