How is evolution different from natural selection?

Answer 1

Darwinism is often what opponents to evolution call evolution to make it sound like some sort of Darwin cult, but it can also be used to just refer to evolution through natural selection as it was understood in the late 1800s, though that is usually called darwinian evolution rather than "darwinism".

Also social darwinism is the application of natural selection to human civilization, the idea that the poor should starve to death because they're "weaker" etc. A faulty injection of biological science into social philosophy.

Answer 2

First of all, there is no "creationist theory" in the scientific sense of the word. Young Earth Creationism is a religious belief based on mythology from the Biblical book Genesis.

They therefore don't merely differ in the details of their accounts; they differ in a much more fundamental way: one, evolutionary theory, provides a testable account in terms of demonstrable natural mechanisms, the other simply asserts that supernatural forces did things, without addressing the questions of why and how, or providing any means to test the claims.

Answer 3

Evolution is the well documented fact that a population changes over time.

(ie. Mutation of bacteria to become resistant to antibiotics)

The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection, is the explanation of how evolution occurs via natural selection - a good comparison would by gravitational theory (which is a theoretical explanation for the fact of gravity).

It should be noted that much has changed in evolutionary theory since Darwin first proposed his ideas about natural selection. For instance, it is recognised these days that natural selection is not the only factor "directing" evolution. Another important factor is genetic drift, wherein chance decides which of a number of variations that are equivalent in terms of selection pressure shall become fixed in the population.

Answer 4

Two simplified, short explanations. Remember, populations evolve, individuals are selected.

Evolution is the change in allele frequency over time in a population of organisms.

Natural selection is the nonrandom survival and reproductive success of an randomly varying organism over it's conspecifics and against the backdrop of the immediate environment.

Answer 5

By definition.

Evolution is the change in allele frequency over time in a population of organisms. Since allele frequencies change ever so slightly with every reproduction, this means that even without mechanisms to favour certain alleles over others, populations evolve over time - although at rates far slower than anything observed in nature.

Natural selection is the non-random differential reproductive success of randomly varying replicators (individual genetic sequences). Basically, genetic sequences that are "better" at getting themselves copied (ie. having the organism they "inhabit" produce offspring that carries copies of them), will have greater numbers in the population gene pool than "rival" genes.

Note that, even though evolution and natural selection are different concepts, it is practically impossible for evolution to occur without natural selection. Every organism that has ever existed lived in an environment that it shared with "rival" replicators that were after the same foodstuffs as itself, foodstuffs that in turn are always in limited supply. This means that every organism has had to "compete" with "rivals" over the available foodstuffs in order to be better able to replicate.

Answer 6

Natural selection classically models the differential reproductive success of variant organisms. Of course, nothing in nature is black-and-white, and a form of natural selection may very well have been at work on the molecular precursors of life-as-we-know-it. So the difference, as I see it, is mainly one of chosen scope, or chosen definition.

Answer 7

The theory of evolution describes the process of evolution. Evolution is happening out there, while we describe and understand it in here using the theory. ^^

Answer 8

Natural selection is the mechanism by which evolution takes place.

Answer 9

Natural selection in volve variation and selection breeding is breeding them