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Molecules and Evolutionary History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2017

Allen G. Collins
Allen G. Collins*
Affiliation:
Museum of Paleontology and Department of Integrative Biology, University of California Berkeley, California 94720
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Extract

Paleontologists learn and tell the history of life; it is our job. You might suspect that paleontologists spend most of their time studying fossils. While fossils are an important source of information for the paleontologist, other types of evidence can also tell us about biological history. For instance, the rocks themselves provide important information, especially about past climates. It makes perfect sense that organisms are more easily understood if you know the environment in which they lived. A third important source of information is all around us. The organisms alive today are the current products of the various processes of evolution that have been at work for more than three billion years. Organisms carry the legacy of their histories with them, in their anatomy, behavior, and genes. By studying and comparing living organisms, we learn about the past. Advances in technology have made the abundant historical information contained in biological molecules, chiefly genes and their RNA and protein products, easier to obtain. Thus, it is not too surprising to see today's paleontologist setting about his or her business with a rock hammer in one hand and a pipettor in the other.

Type
Evidence for Evolution
Information
The Paleontological Society Special Publications , Volume 9: Evolution: Investigating the Evidence , 1999 , pp. 241 - 260
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 by The Paleontological Society 

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References

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