"Hominin evolution was not a peaceful, boring process of very slow change over time," Arsuaga said.
This favourable evolution was not shared by the peasants of eastern Europe.
Though they included the concept that biological "changes over time" occur, the word evolution was not mentioned.
One of Xu's former colleagues, Teng Biao, told me, "For the government, 'peaceful evolution' was not just a slogan.
The Senckenberg could see it was a spectacular find, but Ida's significance for human evolution was not then clear, and the museum could not afford it.
Furthermore, evolution was not a new idea; it had been a matter of common discussion among European biologists since the late 18th century.
It seemed that, pace Darwin, evolution was not all about competition, tools and weapons, led by males; but also about integration and co-operation, led by females.
Another author, Bruce M. Latimer of Case Western Reserve, said the findings clearly showed that the adaptation to bipedality, though considered one of the decisive transitions in early human evolution, was not a single, isolated event.
An aide said Mr. Ryan's evolution was not hard to understand: when he began in Congress he considered the issue primarily through the prism of constituents in southern Wisconsin who worried about export markets for agricultural products.
While John T. Scopes did not win that day in 1925 and the Tennessee law preventing him from teaching evolution was not repealed until 1967, it is remarkable that a nominee of one of our two major parties has not come to terms with the issue.
He said the evolution was not a result of any external factors -- like the successful resolution of a war he had opposed -- but to what he had heard during a year of almost nonstop campaigning that has been far more intense than any of his rivals.
