Sentence examples for a ladder of progress from inspiring English sources
"a ladder of progress" is a correct and usable phrase in written English
It is typically used to describe a series of steps or stages that lead towards improvement or advancement in a particular area. Example: "Education is often seen as a ladder of progress, with each level of achievement opening doors to new opportunities."
The picture of early life provided by the Qingjiang, Burgess, and other Cambrian fossil beds makes it clear that evolution is not a coherent march up a ladder of progress, but a contingent, often unpredictable process.
Fig. 1 Evolution is not goal directed and does not climb a ladder of progress.
Fig. 7 Evolution produces a bushy tree, not a ladder of progress.
selective agents, selective environments, competition, symbiosis, mutualisms, coevolution The ladder of progress Species attempt to ascend the rungs of a "ladder of progress," with humanity at the top.
Uncritical commentaries often portray evolution as a ladder of progress, leading towards bigger, faster, and smarter organisms, the assumption being that evolution is somehow driving organisms to get more complex and ultimately more like humankind.
"[But] life is a copiously branching bush, continually pruned by the grim reaper of extinction, not a ladder of predictable progress".
In Gould's words (1989), "Life is a copiously branching bush, continually pruned by the grim reaper of evolution, not a ladder of predictable progress".
Consequently, it is inappropriate to view the behaviour of living species as the rungs of a ladder of complexity progressing back to simpler ancestral behaviours.
Indeed, the idea of a unique human "consciousness" echoes 19th century misunderstandings, both the debunked notion of vitalism and the vision of biology which placed human beings at the apex of a single ladder of progress.
This is particularly important because students (and the general public) have a tendency to view evolution as a goal-directed ladder of progress (Fig. 1) that organisms climb as they are changed by natural selection (e.g., see Alters and Nelson 2002; Nehm and Reilly 2007).
In other words, spending more money to improve the education of the greatest number of people when they are children helps an entire society climb the ladder of progress.
