核心畫面
Picture a row of pictures of the same animal, taken a million years apart: no single step looks like a change, but the last picture is a different creature from the first. Evolution can be thought of as that kind of change — slow, made of tiny steps, with no one deciding it and no single moment where it happened. Nobody redesigned the animal; it simply came out different at the far end. Both uses of the word keep that shape.
可以想成把同一種動物、每隔一百萬年拍一張照片排成一列：任何相鄰的兩張看起來都沒什麼差別，但第一張和最後一張已經是兩種…更多收起
可以想成把同一種動物、每隔一百萬年拍一張照片排成一列：任何相鄰的兩張看起來都沒什麼差別，但第一張和最後一張已經是兩種生物了。evolution 的畫面可以想成這種變化——很慢、由無數小步組成、沒有人在中間下決定，也找不到「就是那一刻變了」的那一刻。沒有誰把牠重新設計一遍，牠只是走到後面就長得不一樣了。這個字的兩個用法都保留這個形狀，所以它跟 change（單純的改變）或 revolution（一次翻掉重來）給人的感覺很不一樣。原始詞典資料10 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
evolutionnoun/ˌiːvəˈluːʃ(ə)n/
- 1
governmentmilitarypoliticsA change of position.
- Mean while, he never failed to be present, when any regiment, or corps of men, were drawn out to be exercised and reviewed, and accompanied them in all their evolutions […].
- Major Holroyd, who acted as the General, was extremely polite, and attentive, and came to us between every evolution, to explain and talk over the manoeuvres.
- 2
dancedancinghobbiesA change of position.
- Our necromancer […] taking up his wand, waved it around his head in a very mysterious motion, with a view of intimidating these forward visitants, who, far from being awed by this sort of evolution, became more and more obstreperous […].
- It was a critical instant: the pirouette -- it would fail, she feared. … the rapid whirl achieved in exact time, the whole evolution executed to perfection.
- 3
obsoleteA change of position.
- ‘It is not in the showy evolutions of buildings, but in the multiplicity of human habitations which are crouded together, that the wonderful immensity of London consists.’
- 4
archaicAn unfolding.
- The world […] might have been gradually produced from very small beginnings […] rather than by a sudden evolution of the whole by the Almighty fiat.
- 5
geometrymathematicssciencesAn unfolding.
- 6
historicalmathematicssciencesAn unfolding.
- 7
chemistrynatural-sciencesphysical-sciencesAn unfolding.
- Allantoxaidin is decomposed on heating, with evolution of ammonia and cyanic acid.
- 8
Process of development.
- The ongoing evolution of Lolita subculture fashion includes, among other things, the ballet style.
- Suffering has a noble purpose: the evolution of consciousness and the burning up of the ego.
另外 2 個記錄的用法
- 9
Process of development.
- Among other forms of change, the evolution of transportation has involved modification, diversification, convergence, divergence, hybridization, differentiation, and naturally, selection.
- By some paradoxical evolution rancour and intolerance have been established in the vanguard of primitive Christianity. Mrs. Spoker, in common with many of the stricter disciples of righteousness, was as inclement in demeanour as she was cadaverous in aspect.
- 10
biologynatural-sciencesProcess of development.
- […]and thus he [Lamarck] was inclined to assert the priority of the types of marine animals to those of the terrestrial, and to fancy, for example, that the testacea of the ocean existed first, until some of them, by gradual evolution, were improved into those inhabiting the land.
- [Some books have] made the erroneous assumption that the important thing in evolution is the good of the species (or the group) rather than the good of the individual (or the gene).
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。