doctrine of descent

British  

noun

1. the theory that animals and plants arose by descent from previously existing organisms; theory of evolution

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Example Sentences

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doctrine of descent

De Vries' theory in no way affects the doctrine of descent, nor does it take away from the importance of natural selection in fixing the variations.

From Sociology and Modern Social Problems by Ellwood, Charles A. (Charles Abram)

For this reason all these vast and manifold aggregates of facts are so many evidences of the doctrine of descent.

From Freedom in Science and Teaching. from the German of Ernst Haeckel by Huxley, Thomas Henry

All that agnostic science and the evolution philosophy had to teach, George Eliot accepted, its doctrine of descent, its new psychology, and its theories of society and human destiny.

From George Eliot; a Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy by Cooke, George Willis

Until the doctrine of descent was accepted there was no way of explaining the presence of these fossil remains of extinct animals in the earth's crust.

From Sociology and Modern Social Problems by Ellwood, Charles A. (Charles Abram)

At all events, our diagnoses must be freed from these intermediate breaks or failures in the chain of continuity, or the doctrine of descent must tumble with the imaginary foundations on which it is built.

From Life: Its True Genesis by Wright, R. W.