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Natural Selection
Natural selection is a function of evolution. It involves biological traits becoming more or less prominent depending on the needs and environment of a specific species.
500 Questions
Is natural selection same as survival of the fittest?
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According to evolutionary theory, natural selection is the principle that directs evolution.
What is natural selection and does it contradict creation?
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Natural selection is the driving force behind evolution, and an observable fact about nature. It is how species adapt to their environment in congress with spontaneous genetic mutation and other evolutionary mechanisms.
Does it contradict with creation? Depends what you mean by creation.
Darwin believed in a creator, he talked about "the creator" in the first book about evolution On The Origin Of Species. But unlike the average christian who believes god created all life as-is in one week, he believed a god (not neccesarily the god of any one religion) created the simplest form of microscopic life, and all life evolved from there.
That life evolved gradually, that all life has a common line of descent or "family tree" etc, are all widely accepted as fact by scientists and has been conclusively demonstrated through the fossil record and genetics.
Interestingly the bible does not just give the standard "god made everything in six days" creation account, in the first two chapters of genesis it gives two accounts, one says god created the plants and the animals, the other says he let the earth do it.
This is not an explicit mention of darwinian evolution, more likely a reference to the ancient concept that the earth can produce life, whether that ability is god-given or not.
A Somewhat More Technical Answer Natural Selection, at its most basic, is simply differential reproductive success. If I possess a variant of a heritable trait that allows me to raise more offspring successfully than those with other variants of that trait, my variant will become more common in the population. This is not an assumption or theoretical proposition. It is a logical, observable, reproducible, demographic fact. As such, it cannot contradict creation because creation says nothing about natural selection. If anything, creation contradicts the concept of common descent,which is another part of the general theory of evolution. A more general answer Natural selection, in its original form, was merely the theory that organisms will gradually change over time because of factors in the organism's environment. For example, if two groups of a particular kind of organism find themselves in different environments - say that one group is placed in an area with one kind of predator and the other groups is placed in an environment with a different predator - the two groups will eventually change on a biological level to have different characteristics which help defend them against the particular predator they face. If they change sufficiently enough, the two groups will no longer be able to interbreed, and will become separate species.
What is a natural selection results?
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Adaptions that lead to greater survivability and reproductive success in the immediate environment of the individual organisms under selection pressure.
How does heritability affect natural selection?
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Without the heritability of individual traits what difference would it make if the individual was selected. An individual that has a germ line mutation, say, and this mutation could confer survivability and reproductive success on progeny thus passes this mutation to said offspring is selected. Then evolution, the change in allele frequency over time in a population of organisms, could take place. Heritability is all as individuals are selected but populations evolve.
How does natural selection work in the environment?
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Some individual organisms are better equipped to live and reproduce in their environment than others. If what makes them better equipped is heritable, their offspring will be more numerous and will tend to inherit the same traits or qualities themselves. The opposite will happen to those poorly equipped. They will have fewer or no offspring, and their negative traits will tend to disappear from the population as time goes on. These two tendencies are called positive (natural) selection and negative (natural) selection respectively. Natural selection is always relative to the environment. What is advantageous in one environment may not be so in another, and what is disadvantageous (deleterious) in one environment may not be so in another.
What is the main similarity between the process if artificial selection and natural selection?
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The similarity between artificial and natural selection is that they are both weeding out unfavorable traits for favorable traits to be well equipped for survival.
What is the key to natural selection?
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successful reproduction
that makes sense because with out reproduction they're wouldn't be anyone else there besides the thing that tried to reproduce dies
How does natural selection and evolution change species?
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Mutations are believed by many evolutionists to provide a means for variablity in some of the characteristics of a species. For example, extra fingers and toes. However, since all mutations are DNA-destructive and result in a loss of information, increasing complexity from mutations is believed by many to be impossible. This is especially true if one subscribes to Information Theory, which states that information only comes from greater pre-existing information. Extra fingers only demonstrate an error in creating the correct number of digits, not additional information.
If a certain variation provides an advantage for an individual (or inter-breeding group) they these individuals will survive and breed where all others will die. This is natural selection (not evolution). The offspring of the survivors will all carry the traits of their parents. Therefore, the fittest will tend to thrive, but not change into a different species, at least not through this mechanism.
Evolution by natural selection results in what?
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Natural selection is the nonrandom survival and reproductive success of randomly varying organisms.
The organism that is selected leaves more alleles of his progeny in the populations gene pool and evolution is just the change of that allele frequency over time in populations.
Do people who believe in Darwinism believe in god?
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It's not always a contradiction for an evolutionary biologist to believe in God or a religious person to believe in evolution.
In Judaism, for example, there are some theories, interpretations and beliefs which actually compromise between the two schools.
What was the Reform Darwinism movement?
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This would be the Government taking a more active role in social issues. And example would be welfare, social security, and so on. It is the Idea that as a human race we can evolve faster by condemning Laissez-faire type of governments. The idea is that the Government is the only way to be socially evolved.
What best describes the relationship between evolution and natural selection?
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Natural selection is when two organisms breed. The good genes that the child would need to survive in the habitat are passed on and the bad genes are not used. So the offspring would have had all of the right genes in order to survive.
Natural selection keeps happening and then over time the species would completely adapt to the environment and sometimes a new species is made. This means the species has evolved into a new , adapted one That is the link! Hope it helped
Who identified natural selection as a component of evolution?
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The men Charles Robert Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace are the co discoverers of the identified theory of evolution by natural selection.
How does adaptation relate to natural selection?
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Its a chicken and egg situation. Adaptation is the response to Natural Selection, and Natural Selection is the response to Adaptation. They both operate by the principle: the members of any species that are best adapted to their environment are the ones most likely to survive and reproduce the next generation, where the process repeats. That does not mean the strongest or most aggressive, they often get themselves killed off.
Natural selection can only act on traits?
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Yes, traits that are phenotypical in nature and confer some survival and reproductive advantage, then the alleles that gave rise to these traits become more frequent in the populations gene pool and evolution takes place.
So, natural selection is acting on genes in the individuals and population are evolving from this process.
Is natural selection stabilizing?
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Natural selection is more of an evolutionary factor than a stabilizing factor, but one could argue that the end result of evolution is an organism that is perfectly adapted to its ecological niche, in which case stability will result.
Compare and contrast natural selection and evolution?
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Natural selection is the most powerful driver of evolution and it is the only mechanism of evolution ( genetic drift and gene flow are two other mechanisms ) that leads to adaptive change.
Natural selection is the nonrandom survival and reproductive success of of randomly varying organisms.
Evolution is the change in allele frequency over time in a population of organisms.
What are natural selection and the term survival of the fittest?
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because all living organisms are born with genes that make them unique. They are passed down by our parents. when a disease or predator comes into an environment, only the creatures with the gene to survive or live through the 'disaster or problem.' this is usually called survival of the fittest due to only the best or 'fittest' are able to survive. Then the creature that survived has off spring that in turn get that gene and allows for the offspring to survive as well. this alters the species and usually considered a mutation. Like humans used to have webbed feet, but the first human or ape that lost the webbed feet was able to survive and thus continued the mutation until today it is accepted as normal versus our original webbed feet. Because those best equipped to "survive" prosper. They were the "most fit" to endure and prosper in their particular environment. It is described as the survival of the fittest is because the more an animal is fit for his or her environment the better chances it has of survival. If the animal is fit it will be able to catch his or her prey and if not he or she will die of starvation.
