How Does Artificial Selection Support Human Evolution

Evolution is the change in allele frequency in a population over time or, more simply, the process by which populations of organisms change over time (helped by the process of natural selection). Artificial selection does support this theory, except that the evolution happens intentionally, instead of naturally. Due to random mutations, variation within a population exists, allowing certain characteristics/genes to be selected as more favorable than others. Therefore, humans breed organisms with the favorable characteristics together to have offspring that might have the same characteristic. To do this, the characteristic has to have heritable genes so that the parent can pass the genes over to the offspring and increase the chance for survival in future generations, not just the individual (parent). Overtime, organisms with the favorable genes would increase while organisms without the genes would decrease, causing the population to eventually change (allele frequency would change so that there would be a larger concentration of the selected allele). For example, dogs have evolved through artificial selection. People who want pet …show more content…
Modern day corn evolved from the teosinte plant. The teosinte plant was only 19 mm, had 5-10 kernels, was very hard, and tasted like a dry, raw potato (Kennedy). However, over time, humans used selective breeding to breed seeds of teosinte that had favorable characteristics that made it more edible. Today, according to James Kennedy, corn is almost a 1000 times larger, soft, and sweet due to this type of artificial selection. This has an economical advantage because people prefer this type of sweet, bigger corn so farmers make a profit meeting the demand of corn by growing this strain of crop. If artificial selection did not happen and the teosinte plant was the only kind of corn available, then no one would want it due to lack of appeal and inefficiency (distasteful and