Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Essay on darwin's theory of natural selection
Darwin theory of natural selection essay
Darwin theory of natural selection essay
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Essay on darwin's theory of natural selection
If you look at the people around you, are they all the same? What would happen if we lived in a world where all the food was kept 8 feet off the ground and there was absolutely no way you could get it if you weren’t tall enough? Most likely, the short people would die off. The taller ones would multiply, and before long, instead of a population of people of all sizes, you would have a population of only tall people. Living things that are best-suited, or adapted, to their environment survive and multiply. Those that are not, are unable to survive. This process is known as natural selection. This process explains how Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution can occur. The purpose of completing this lab was to demonstrate that natural selection results in populations different than the original because of the adaptations that occur as a result of the population’s environment.
During the lab, we pretended that we were “birds” that eat “beetles”. In the lab, the beetles were represented by the different colored dots. The colors that we used were blue, red, and clear. We started out with 100 dots of each color. We were instructed to gather around the room in a circle, with the dots scattered around in the center on the floor. When the lights were off, we were supposed to wait because it was “night” and we didn’t hunt at “night”. When the lights turned on, it was “morning”, and as the saying goes, “the early bird gets the worm”, or in this case the beetle. :] Everyone in the class tried to get as many beetles as possible in the time limit that was allowed. In the end, 82/100 blue beetles, 84/100 red beetles, and 14/100 clear beetles were captured.
There were different techniques/traits that were used by different people. Some people were really quick and got many beetles, and others were really slow and got very few or none at all. People also used less honorable techniques and stole from other people or they tried to get beetles at night. They figured out which techniques worked well, and which ones did not. The ones that were successful and resulted in a large amount of beetles were used multiple times, and the techniques/traits that proved less successful died out. As a result, the dominant people will reproduce and pass on their successful traits, while the less dominant will be unable to reproduce and their traits will be unable to be handed down to the next generation of offspring.
To conduct the experiment, the beetles were massed, then attached to a petri dish with a 30 centimeter piece of dental floss. The beetle’s mass was the independent variable. Afterwards, the floss was tied to the beetle’s midsection with a slip knot. Then, the beetle was placed on a piece of fabric with the petri dish attached to it. As soon as the beetle was able to move with one paperclip inside the petri dish, more were added, one by one, until it could not move any further. After the beetle could not pull any more, the paperclips were massed and the results were recorded. The dependent variable was the mass that the beetles could pull. No control group was included in this experiment.
However, evidence such as fossils is more than enough to lend support and disprove any other theory to the development of species. Examples used by Root-Bernstein and McEachron also provide strong support to evolution. The authors detail how natural selection works in both insects and germs to create organisms better adapted to methods of control. Disease used to run rampant, until the creation of vaccines which led to many diseases becoming extinct. Root-Bernstein and McEachron note that the diseases that have survived to this day have been constantly mutating and evolving to become more resistant to any attempts at suppression. The same can be said for insects that have been consistently exposed to pesticides. The ones that survived the pesticides were able to reproduce and pass along a resistance to their offspring which in turn makes the species more resilient and better suited to their
"On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life," usually shortened to "the Origin of Species," is the full title of Charles Darwin's book, first published in 1859, in which Darwin formalized what we know today as the Theory of Evolution. Although Darwin is the most famous exponent of this theory, he was by no means the first person to suspect the workings of evolution. In fact, Charles owed a considerable debt to his grandfather Erasmus, a leading scientist and intellectual, who published a paper in 1794, calledZoonomia, or, The Laws of Organic Life. This set down many of the ideas that his grandson elaborated on 70 years later.
Darwin and Evolution are inextricably linked in the minds of most people who have had the opportunity to study them in basic biology. However, Darwin's theories of selection and survival of the fittest have been applied to moral, economic, political, and other cultural aspects of society. Dennett briefly touched on some of the political and social ramifications of Darwin's theories in the final chapter of Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Other philosophers and thinkers have also adapted Darwin's evolutionary ideas, in order to apply them in a societal or cultural context. One great example of this adaptation of the biological concept of evolution, is the appearance of Social Darwinism during the 19th century.
Anyone with even a moderate background in science has heard of Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution. Since the publishing of his book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859, Darwin’s ideas have been debated by everyone from scientists to theologians to ordinary lay-people. Today, though there is still severe opposition, evolution is regarded as fact by most of the scientific community and Darwin’s book remains one of the most influential ever written.
Smith, R.H. (1963). Toxicity of pine resin vapors to three species of Dendroctonusvbark beetles. Journal of Economic Entomology 56: 827-831
In 1859, a biologist named Charles Darwin postulated a scientific theory, which stated that all living organisms evolved through a process of natural selection. According to Stephen Hawking, Charles Darwin claimed that the offspring of a particular species gradually evolved themselves genetically to resist the changes in the environment (573). The theory contended that the organisms could adapt to the changes in the environment through the survival of the fittest. Though this theory is regarded as a breakthrough in the field of biological evolution, it is interesting to explore how this seemingly scientific theory has been suitably modified, and intellectually applied to both negative and positive aspects of life.
James Hutton was born June 3rd, 1726, in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was a Scottish farmer and a naturalist, later in life he was known as the father of modern geology.
Within a few decades, geneticists determined that quantitative characters are influenced by multiple genetic loci and that the alleles at each locus follow Mendelian laws of inheritance.
Charles Darwin has five parts to his theory of natural selection, firstly the “Geometric increase” which claims that “all living things reproduce in great numbers”, meaning that species may survive but not all will survive because, the resources used for survival for instance ,food will not be enough for all living things. “The struggle for existence” because there is a limited number of resources and can only sustain some and not all, not all living things will survive, however the question lies in which living being will survive?. “Variation” is the third part of natural selection which claims that within those living things there are variations within them that will determine whic...
With the studies that Charles Darwin obtained he published his first work, “The Origin of Species.” In this book he explained how for millions of years animals, and plants have evolved to better help their existence. Darwin reasoned that these living things had gradually changed over time to help themselves. The changes that he found seemed to have been during the process of reproduction. The traits which would help them survive became a dominant trait, while the weaker traits became recessive. A good example of what Darwin was trying to explain is shown in giraffes. Long-necked giraffes could reach the food on the trees, while the short-necked giraffes couldn’t. Since long necks helped the giraffes eat, short-necked giraffes died off from hunger. Because of this long-necks became a dominant trait in giraffes. This is what Charles Darwin would later call natural selection.
where beetles found only in the eastern United States. They also found the back leg of a
Charles Darwin in his book, On the Origin of Species, presents us with a theory of natural selection. This theory is his attempt at an explanation on how the world and its' species came to be the way that we know them now. Darwin writes on how through a process of millions of years, through the effects of man and the effects of nature, species have had an ongoing trial and error experiment. It is through these trials that the natural world has developed beneficial anomalies that at times seem too great to be the work of chance.
On Darwin’s trip around the world he found something very interesting on the Galapagos Islands. On the isolated islands he found fourteen species of finches with very similar characteristics but they had some differences in their beaks, diet, body size and habitat. Darwin thought the birds had a common ancestor. He thought that some time back some finches arrived on the islands and the finches with the beaks that suited the islands conditions survived this happened on all the islands. When they had offspring the next generation would inherit the same beak. This is a great example of natural selection which was a contributor to how humans evolved. From this Darwin established his theory of natural selection and how slowly over time creatures...
Seventh, in some groups of insects, truly social behavior has evolved. Social behavior will allow a large population to survive through difficult periods via cooperation in food gathering, food storage, temperature control, and colony