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34-405: Wonderful Life may refer to: Wonderful Life (book) , a 1989 book on evolution by Stephen Jay Gould Film and television [ edit ] Wonderful Life (1964 film) , 1964 film starring Cliff Richard Wonderful Life (2018 film) , a 2017 fantasy film directed by Jo Won-hee Wonderful Life , original Japanese title of After Life ,

68-411: A 1998 Japanese film directed by Hirokazu Koreeda Wonderful Life (2004 TV series) , 2004 Japanese television drama Wonderful Life (2005 TV series) , 2005 South Korean television drama Music [ edit ] Albums [ edit ] Wonderful Life (Black album) , 1987 Wonderful Life (Cliff Richard album) , 1964 Songs [ edit ] "Wonderful Life" (Black song) ,

102-604: A Wonderful Life (disambiguation) Isn't Life Wonderful (disambiguation) Life is Wonderful (disambiguation) Beautiful Life (disambiguation) Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Wonderful Life . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wonderful_Life&oldid=1196715587 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description

136-411: A ladder of predictable progress." He discusses society's obsession with unsuccessful lineages as "textbook cases" of "evolution". To elaborate, we consistently seek out "a single line of advance from the true topology of copious branching. In this misguided effort, we are inevitably drawn to branches so near the brink of total annihilation that they retain only one surviving twig. We then view this twig as

170-404: A linear progression of life towards ever-increasing mental powers and a "comfortable view of human inevitability and superiority." Gould argues that the definition of Evolution to professional biologists is "adaptation to changing environments", not progress, and that the composition of life on the planet is rather a "copiously branching bush, continually pruned by the grim reaper of extinction, not

204-483: A little two-inch Cambrian oddball invertebrate named Opabinia . Wonderful Life quickly climbed the national bestseller lists within weeks of publication. It stimulated wide discussion regarding the nature of progress and contingency in evolution. Gould's thesis was that if the history of life were replayed over again, human-level intelligence would prove unlikely to ever arise again. The evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr argued that Gould, "made such contingencies

238-470: A major theme in Wonderful Life , and I have come to the conclusion that here he may be largely right." In his review, the biologist Richard Dawkins wrote that, "The view that he is attacking – that evolution marches inexorably towards a pinnacle such as man – has not been believed for 50 years." Biologist John Maynard Smith wrote, "I agree with Gould that evolution

272-485: A paleo-ecosystem with much greater anatomical disparity than currently exists and that fewer phyla exist today compared to the Cambrian seas. Gould offers the view that life during the Cambrian explosion quickly proliferated into the diversity of forms seen today due to the availability of numerous ecological niches and was subsequently decimated by extinction level events throughout geological time. He also notes that

306-533: A role. Additionally, a trait may be convergent at a broader level of description while being divergent at a more detailed level, with an example being the differently structured wings of insects , pterosaurs , birds , and bats . Knowing how common convergence is also requires more research into how often a trait failed to evolve under the same selective pressures, as well as into traits that evolved only once among all known organisms. Some examples of contingency affecting evolutionary outcomes have been identified. In

340-633: A song by Gwen Stefani from her 2006 album The Sweet Escape "Wonderful Life", a song by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds from their 2003 album Nocturama "Wonderful Life", a song by T.I. from his 2012 album Trouble Man: Heavy Is the Head See also [ edit ] [REDACTED] Search for "Wonderful Life" on Misplaced Pages. All pages with titles beginning with Wonderful Life All pages with titles containing Wonderful Life A Wonderful Life (disambiguation) It's

374-427: A way that no one else could equal." Some of the anatomical reconstructions cited by Gould were soon challenged as being incorrect, most notably Simon Conway Morris ' 1977 reconstruction of Hallucigenia . Conway Morris' reconstruction was, "so peculiar, so hard to imagine as an efficiently working beast" Gould speculated that Hallucigenia might be "a complex appendage of a larger creature, still undiscovered." It

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408-400: Is because their bush has been extremely unsuccessful. Instead, Gould argues, we should look to bats, antelopes, and rodents as champions of mammalian evolution as they present us with "thousands of twigs on a vigorous bush" and are the true embodiments of evolutionarily successful groups. Gould argues that the conventional view of evolution, as illustrated by the cone of increasing diversity,

442-596: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Wonderful Life (book) Gould's thesis in Wonderful Life was that contingency plays a major role in the evolutionary history of life . He based his argument on the extraordinarily well preserved fossils of the Burgess Shale , a rich fossil-bearing deposit in Canada's Rocky Mountains , dating 505 million years ago. Gould argues that during this period just after

476-401: Is flawed. It is typically assumed that early life is restricted in form, and from this restriction of form follows diversification into the variety of animal life that currently exists. This cone can be visualized as an inverted Christmas tree, with a narrow base and numerous branches proliferating outward into the present day. Gould presents an alternative hypothesis, however, which states that

510-428: Is not in general predictable. ... Although I agree with Gould about contingency, I find the problem of progress harder. ... I do think that progress has happened, although I find it hard to define precisely what I mean." Philosopher Michael Ruse wrote that, " Wonderful Life was the best book written by the late Stephen Jay Gould, paleontologist and popular science writer. It is ... a thrilling story that Gould tells in

544-688: The E. coli long-term evolution experiment , out of the 12 populations, only one evolved the highly beneficial trait of growing on citrate , which further experimental replays using frozen ancestral bacteria showed required particular 'potentiating' mutations to arise first. Woodpeckers and aye-ayes occupy the same ecological niche of locating and extracting beetle larvae from wood, but do so by very different means (beak and elongated finger respectively) due to their respective evolutionary histories, as birds lack fingers and primates lack beaks. The unique flora and fauna of isolated locations on Earth, such as New Zealand , as well as from extinct lineages such as

578-467: The Cambrian explosion there was a greater disparity of anatomical body plans ( phyla ) than exist today. However most of these phyla left no modern descendants. All of the Burgess animals, Gould argues, were exquisitely adapted to their environment, and there exists little evidence that the survivors were any better adapted than their extinct contemporaries. Gould proposed that given a chance to "rewind

612-421: The iconography of evolution in popular culture and the damaging effects of the march of progress on public understanding of the theory. The march of progress, Gould argues, has led to the popular interpretation that the evolution of increased mental powers, ultimately culminating in the development of man's complex brain, is the natural outcome of evolution. Thus, the term "Evolution" is often conflated with

646-498: The " N = 1 problem ," which refers to the limitation of basing all theories of life on a single example—life on Earth. This terrestrial bias could hinder the search for extraterrestrial life by assuming that alien life must conform to Earth-like biochemical frameworks. The authors propose a model that incorporates both deterministic and contingent processes, suggesting a spectrum of possibilities for how life could arise under different environmental conditions. This broader understanding of

680-424: The acme of upward achievement, rather than the probable last grasp of a richer ancestry." Gould uses the evolution of the horse to illustrate this point, as the unbroken connection between Hyracotherium (formerly called Eohippus ) and Equus provides an apparent linear path from simplicity to complexity. The only reason the evolution of horses has become the canonical representation of progressive evolution

714-610: The causes of their evolution in the first place." Gould earlier coined the term exaptation to describe fortuitously beneficial traits, which are adaptive but arise for reasons other than incremental natural selection. Gould regarded Opabinia  – an odd creature with five eyes and frontal nozzle – as so important to understanding the Cambrian explosion that he wanted to call his book Homage to Opabinia . Gould wrote: I believe that Whittington's reconstruction of Opabinia in 1975 will stand as one of

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748-437: The central argument of Wonderful Life, is that "any replay of the tape of life would lead evolution down a pathway radically different from the road actually taken." Additionally, Gould argues, no outcome can be predicated from the start, but the resulting pattern that emerges after replaying the tape of life would be just as interpretable and logical as our current situation. In Wonderful Life , Stephen Jay Gould discusses

782-455: The evolution of life on Earth. It is these central ideas which prompt Gould to propose a thought experiment called "replaying the tape of life." Its central essence is this: if we rewind the clock and replay the history of life on Earth numerous times, will we consistently see the same outcome that is the reality we experience today? The outcome of this thought experiment has two possible interpretations, elaborated by Gould, Gould's opinion, and

816-401: The great documents in the history of human knowledge. How many other empirical studies have led directly on to a fundamentally revised view about the history of life? We are awestruck by Tyrannosaurus ; we marvel at the feathers of Archaeopteryx ; we revel in every scrap of fossil human bone from Africa. But none of these has taught us anywhere near so much about the nature of evolution as

850-569: The history of a particular lineage. Evolution is a historical process, and the outcomes of history can be sensitive to the details of the interactions and events that preceded them. Contingency was especially emphasized by Stephen Jay Gould , particularly in his 1989 book Wonderful Life . Gould used the thought experiment of rewinding the "tape of life" to the distant past, and argued that even small changes to history would result in evolutionary outcomes very different from our world. Gould's thought experiment has inspired real experiments in

884-537: The history of life is better described as "decimation followed by diversification within a few remaining stocks", represented as a pyramid with a wide base of anatomical disparity that becomes increasingly constrained by natural selection and extinction level events as time moves forward. This is evidenced by the fact that the fossils excavated from the Burgess Shale in British Columbia represent

918-561: The lab and in the field, as well as study of living and extinct organisms as natural experiments . These studies have found that repeatability in evolution is common, particularly in cases of similar founding populations, when defining repeatability broadly, and over the timescales observable in experiments. Convergent evolution has also been found to be unexpectedly widespread in nature, though it occurs more often among closely related taxa that share more genes and developmental biases , indicating that contingency and convergence may both play

952-559: The non-avian dinosaurs during the Mesozoic , are also examples of contingency in evolution resulting in different outcomes. The central question proposed by Wonderful Life is that if life initially proliferated into a greater variety of phyla than currently exist and were subsequently decimated by the stochastic grim reaper of extinction, what then can be said about the inevitability of human intelligence and superiority? Additionally, Gould asks what role historical contingencies play in

986-520: The origins of life Abiogenesis , proposing that non-biomolecular chemistry may have played a significant role in the emergence of life on Earth. The authors argue that prebiotic environments likely contained a diverse array of non-biomolecular compounds that could have contributed to the formation of life. This challenges the traditional view that life must arise solely from biomolecules, such as proteins and nucleic acids, and suggests that life's origins may be more complex and varied. The paper also addresses

1020-438: The sequence alters the final result. Because fitness for existing conditions does not guarantee long-term survival  – particularly when conditions change catastrophically – the survival of many species depends more on luck than conventional features of anatomical superiority. Gould maintains that, "traits that enhance survival during an extinction do so in ways that are incidental and unrelated to

1054-635: The survival of groups following extinction events bears no relationship to traditional notions of Darwinian success in normal times. For example, Ultimately, Gould explains, both the false iconography of the march of progress and our allegiance to the cone of increasing diversity have led us astray in our thinking about trends in evolutionary biology. The paper Alternative Pathways in Astrobiology: Reviewing and Synthesizing Contingency and Non-Biomolecular Origins of Terrestrial and Extraterrestrial Life extends Gould' contingency concept to

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1088-430: The tape of life" and let it play again, we might find ourselves living in a world populated by descendants of Hallucigenia rather than Pikaia (the ancestor of all vertebrates, or at least a close relative thereof). Gould stressed that his argument was not based on randomness but rather contingency , a process by which historical outcomes arise from an unpredictable sequence of antecedent states, where any change in

1122-472: The title track from the 1987 album "Wonderful Life" (Bring Me The Horizon song) , 2019 "Wonderful Life" (Hurts song) , 2010 "Wonderful Life", a song by Alter Bridge from their 2010 album AB III "Wonderful Life", a song and title track from the 1964 Cliff Richard with the Shadows album Wonderful Life "Wonderful Life", a song by Estelle from her 2012 album All of Me "Wonderful Life",

1156-436: Was later brought to light by paleontologists Lars Ramskold and Hou Xianguang that Conway Morris' reconstruction was inverted upside down, and likely belonged to the modern phylum Onychophora . The ultimate theme of the book is still being debated among evolutionary biologists today. Contingency (evolutionary biology) In evolutionary biology , contingency describes how the outcome of evolution may be affected by

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