ABSTRACT

This chapter describes some of what people need to know about evolution as it applies to the development of children. The essence of the Charles Darwin account of evolution is that, for about the last 4 billion years, individual organisms had slightly different characteristics from each other. Some of these variations have inherited from their parents, others have occurred by chance, and yet others have been acquired after birth. People accept that evolution is the best theory of the development of life on earth with certain consequences. These consequences are divided into two sorts of development: the development of species, or phylogeny, and the development of individuals over their lives, or ontogeny. Evolutionary theory is invented to explain phylogeny, the development of species, but it helps us to understand ontogeny, the development of the individual through the lifespan. Evolutionary theory got into the study of child development in a variety of different ways.