For example, many systematists believe that describing the history of life is the central mission of evolutionary biology; in doing so, one might be agnostic about the evolutionary forces influencing this history (see Hull 1988 and Felsenstein 2004 for further details).
Explaining these phenomena is the core intellectual mission of evolutionary theory.
Biologists not advocating explanatory adaptationism view the central mission of evolutionary biology differently.
For the last decade, my research has focused on reconstructing evolutionary processes in colonial period mission populations in Florida and Georgia (Stojanowski 2001, 2003a, b, 2004, 2005a, b, c, d, 2009, 2010).
For the classification of technology policy in an evolutionary framework the taxonomy of mission- and diffusion-oriented policy design introduced by Ergas [Ergas, H. (1987), The importance of technology policy, in: Dasgupta, P., Stoneman, P. (eds)., Economic Policy and Technological Performance, Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge.] is useful.
This theory states that males are infused by nature with the copulatory imperative, a mission, from an evolutionary point of view, to impregnate as many females as possible and so perpetuate our race.
Elucidating the process of adaptation and understanding its genetic basis is a major mission of modern evolutionary biology [ 1, 2].
This is evidenced by the reversal of the trend documented through evolutionary analyses (from less integrated among mission populations to much more integrated among mission populations) in the face of continued declines in population size.
As the need for sample retrieval of various planetary bodies rises for in-depth analysis in attempt to unambiguously unveil their nature, origin and evolutionary history, many future sample return planetary missions are being developed.
