ETYM Cf. French développement.
In the social sciences, the acquisition by a society of industrial techniques and technology; hence the common classification of the “developed” nations of the First and Second worlds and the poorer, “developing” or “underdeveloped” nations of the Third World. The assumption that development in the sense of industrialization is inherently good has been increasingly questioned since the 1960s.
Many universities today have academic departments of development studies that address the theoretical questions involved in proposing practical solutions to the problems of development in the Third World.In biology, the process whereby a living thing transforms itself from a single cell into a vastly complicated multicellular organism, with structures, such as limbs, and functions, such as respiration, all able to work correctly in relation to each other. Most of the details of this process remain unknown, although some of the central features are becoming understood.
Apart from the sex cells (gametes), each cell within an organism contains exactly the same genetic code. Whether a cell develops into a liver cell or a brain cell depends therefore not on which genes it contains, but on which genes are allowed to be expressed. The development of forms and patterns within an organism, and the production of different, highly specialized cells, is a problem of control, with genes being turned on and off according to the stage of development reached by the organism.1. A process in which something passes by degrees to a more advanced or mature stage; SYN. evolution.
2. A recent event that has some relevance for the present situation.
3. A state in which things are improving; the result of developing.
4. Act of improving by expanding or enlarging or refining.
5. Processing a photosensitive material in order to make an image visible; SYN. developing.
6. A district that has been developed to serve some purpose. + prikaži više

ETYM Latin evolutio an unrolling: cf. French évolution evolution. Related to Evolve.
Slow process of change from one form to another, as in the evolution of the universe from its formation in the Big Bang to its present state, or in the evolution of life on Earth. Some Christians and Muslims deny the theory of evolution as conflicting with the belief that God created all things (see creationism). English naturalist Charles Darwin assigned the main role in evolutionary change to natural selection acting on randomly occurring variations (now known to be produced by spontaneous changes or mutations in the genetic material of organisms).
Evolution and creationism.
Organic evolution traces the development of simple unicellular forms to more complex forms, ultimately to the flowering plants and vertebrate animals, including man. The Earth contains an immense diversity of living organisms: about a million different species of animals and half a million species of plants have so far been described. There is overwhelming evidence that this vast array arose by a gradual process of evolutionary divergence and not by individual acts of divine creation as described in the Book of Genesis. There are several lines of evidence: the fossil record, the existence of similarities or homologies between different groups of organisms, embryology, and geographical distribution.
Evolutionary change and genetics.
The idea of continuous evolution in the living world can be traced as far back as Lucretius in the 1st century BC, but it did not gain wide acceptance until the 19th century, following the work of Scottish geologist Charles Lyell, French naturalist Jean Baptiste Lamarck, English naturalist Charles Darwin, and English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley. Darwin assigned the major role in evolutionary change to natural selection acting on randomly occurring variations. Natural selection occurs because those individuals better adapted to their particular environments reproduce more effectively, thus contributing their characteristics to future generations. The current theory of evolution, called neo-Darwinism, combines Darwin's theory with Austrian biologist Gregor Mendel's theories on genetics and Hugo de Vries's discovery of genetic mutation.
Natural selection and chance.
Although neither the general concept of evolution nor the importance of natural selection is doubted by the vast majority of biologists, there remains dispute over other possible processes involved in evolutionary change. Besides natural selection and sexual selection, chance may play a large part in deciding which genes become characteristic of a population, a phenomenon called “genetic drift”. It is now also clear that evolutionary change does not always occur at a constant rate, but that the process can have long periods of relative stability interspersed with periods of rapid change. This has led to new theories, such as punctuated equilibrium model. See also adaptive radiation.
Mechanisms of evolution.
Although the broad outlines of the evolutionary sequence are known, much research is still necessary to fill in the details and to discover the mechanisms of evolutionary change. Evolution depends on the presence of heritable variations in a population which confer a selective advantage on the individuals displaying them. The phrase “survival of the fittest” is misleading since it implies the death of the “unfit” individuals. From an evolutionary point of view, fertility is much more important than survival since if one type regularly leaves more offspring than another, the frequency of the more fertile type in the population is bound to increase. Fertility depends on many things including general vigor, the length of the reproductive period and the ability to mate successfully.
Heritable changes arise from genetic mutations which occur spontaneously in all organisms. Many investigations, which are currently being made into the genetic structures of living plant and animal populations, show the relative importance of mutations and isolation in the origin of new species. It is believed that the processes now occurring on a very small scale are the same as those which have caused the evolution of the major groups over a vast period of geological time. These studies will therefore throw light on the mechanism of evolution.
The sequence of events involved in the evolutionary development of a species or taxonomic group of organisms; SYN. phylogeny, phylogenesis. + prikaži više

ETYM Latin progressio: cf. French progression.
A series with a definite pattern of advance; SYN. patterned advance.
Sequence of numbers each occurring in a specific relationship to its predecessor. An arithmetic progression has numbers that increase or decrease by a common sum or difference (for example, 2, 4, 6, 8); a geometric progression has numbers each bearing a fixed ratio to its predecessor (for example, 3, 6, 12, 24); and a harmonic progression has numbers whose reciprocals are in arithmetical progression, for example 1, ˝, 1/3, Ľ. + prikaži više