To understand the origin of whales, it's necessary to have a basic understanding of how natural selection works. Natural selection can change a species in small ways, causing a population to change color or size over the course of several generations. This is called "microevolution." But natural selection is also capable of much more. Given enough time and enough accumulated changes, natural selection can create entirely new species, known as "macroevolution." It can turn dinosaurs into birds, amphibious mammals into whales and the ancestors of apes into humans. Take the example of whales — using evolution as their guide and knowing how natural selection works, biologists knew that the transition of early whales from land to water occurred…
In the mid-1800s, Darwin and Wallace independently took careful observations of species near the South American content. And although both men were independently investigating, there are many overlaps in their observations and perspective in their respective papers – which focus on natural selection. The primary question of Darwin and Wallace’s papers were to investigate the nature of natural selection in various species and document the variation of characteristics amongst individuals in a…
"Knowledge within a discipline develops according to the principles of natural selection." How useful is this metaphor? Many times questioning existing knowledge leads to new evidence that either supports the knowledge or proves to be wrong. Thus knowledge that is preserved is based on natural selection. However how does natural selection determine the value of knowledge? In History, natural selection determines the value of knowledge through the use of memory and belief. Whereas in natural…
Natural selection as defined by Charles Darwin has exerted a powerful influence on how we perceive our world. This theory holds that favorable characteristics in a species will persist in populations, while disadvantageous traits will be selected against via the death of unfit individuals from environmental pressures, such as predation, decreased availability of resources like nutrients and shelter, and natural processes such as drought; thus only individuals with the most advantageous traits…
Alnajem Christian Petersen Oct 9th 2015 Evolution is not a chaotic process. Evolution is associated with the development of new devices, the formation of new species, the progressive development of wildlife. Natural selection is the only factor that is acting in a heterogeneous population, directs the evolutionary process. According to Charles Darwin the premise of natural selection is the struggle for existence. From a modern point of view, through the struggle for existence, the mechanism of…
Since the publication of Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” in 1859, natural selection has been widely accepted by the scientific community as the engine that drives evolution, or the change of frequency of heritable characteristics in a population over time. Natural selection results in the survival of the fitter individuals of a given population, and therefore the increase in frequency of the genes that produced the adaptive phenotype. For natural selection to occur, there are three…
Through time human activity has led to environmental changes which have caused natural selection to evolve. The theory of natural selection proposes that nature changes species by selecting traits. Charles Darwin sometimes uses the phrase "survival of the fittest" to describe natural selection. Does evolution through natural selection produce "better" organisms in an absolve sense? Are we climbing Scala Naturae? Natural selection produce better organism than before. Fro an example the…
ourselves: where do we come from? Through time, we have tried to answer this question, usually with religious beliefs. However, some people also had their own theory. One of the most known is the theory of evolution and natural selection by Darwin. But, what are natural selection and evolution? Those concepts are often misunderstood. Few people know their different process, the origin of natural selection and the evidence of evolution that we have found. In the first place, we must…
Natural Selection and Sexual Selection This world is colored by diverse species. Some of them persist but others distinct. It is natural and sexual selections that result in incredible difference. Both are leading to a process of evolution while there still exist differences between two selections. “In mammalian males, sexual selection can have a great effect on behavior and morphology than other forms of natural selection because male reproductive success usually varies much more than female…
Natural selection is a change in organism over time that results in the rise of a new species. Natural selection drives the evolution of species by picking the ones that possibly have better benefits and can survive better. An example that shows how natural drives the evolution of species is the beetles. The beetles have two different colors that they can inherit from their parents. They can be in the color green or brown. The beetles will get eaten by crows depending on the environment they are…