Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Evolution Fundamentals and Natural Selection

Ever since 1859 when Charles Darwin published the book “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection,” evolution has been surrounded by controversy. In the book, Darwin explained the evolution of life as a process of natural selection. Life, he wrote, is a competitive struggle to survive, often in the face of limited resources. Living things must compete for food and space. They must evade the ravages of predators and disease while dealing with unpredictable shifts in their environment, such as changes in climate. Darwin believed that, within a known population in a specified environment, certain individuals have characteristics that make them more probable to continue to exist and reproduce. These individuals will pass on these vital characteristics on to their offspring. The number of organisms with these qualities increases as each generation passes on the advantageous combination of traits. On the other hand individuals lacking the beneficial traits gradually decrease in number. Darwin’s point of view was that natural selection commands the equilibrium in a population toward those with the combination of traits, or adaptation, best suited to their environment.
            Darwin's colossal achievement is not limited only to the early scientific works and his developmental works. His dedicated observation, thoughts, inquisitiveness and vigor permitted him to make prominent perceptive contributions to environmental science and other different disciplines. Darwin was impressed by the inter connection of different species, climate and environment. He stressed that the life in any area was the outcome of an amazing history of struggle or war or "great battle for life". He proposed new solutions to how organisms spread across the globe. These thoughts ultimately led to the controversial theory of evolution.
             In "The Origin of Species" Charles Darwin had presented the theory that natural selection was the method that facilitates the course of evolution. Darwin's theory of natural selection did assist to influence most people that life survives in its present shape as a consequence of evolution, rather than a casual series of strange phenomena. Darwin's theories fundamentally achieved some important accomplishments: The first was that all organisms share changes from a common ancestor, which maintained the theory of evolution more or less convincingly and decisively. The second was that scientists are no more forced to question whether evolution is fact or fiction. Evolution is considered to be a scientific fact. Darwin initiated the theory of species changing and adapting gradually in due course, and deduced that the adaptive change frequently occurred via the mechanism of natural selection. The thoughts included the terms "Natural Selection" and/or "Survival of the Fittest”, either independently or as a group, which was a convincing scientific justification for evolution. Darwin’s explanations also showed that a lot of characteristically dissimilar organisms of plants and animals were interrelated through common ancestry. He portrayed Natural Selection as the "Preservation of favorable individual differences and variations, and the destruction of those, which are injurious, or the Survival of the Fittest." (Charles Darwin)
             An added part of Darwin's theory includes the variation in the physical and habitual qualities of every species. This is the region in which the Survival of the Fittest theory most frequently plays the foremost role. Darwin emphasized that for a species to cope with the always varying environments and conditions it is conditional that it must not only adjust, but must also be able to pass on those modified characteristics to its children. Evolutionary psychology is the study of how these concepts relate to us humans and how our social behavior developed through natural selection.


Works Cited

www.writingservicescompany.com/.../science-paper-charles-darwin.html

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-intro-to-biology.html,

Bowler, Peter J. Charles Darwin The Man and His Influence, New York, NY: Blackwell Publishers Oxford, 1990.

Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species
 

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