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On the origin of species by charles darwin essay
Origin of species by charles darwin essay
The importance of evolution
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Evolution is a very hot topic, causing lots of controversy for almost 200 years. It is the belief that creatures have changed and adapted to their environments over time, and that the Earth is more than 6,000 years old. It is shown to be true using radiometric dating, showing some things to be millions of years old. Another theory contributing to some of this is the theory uniformitarianism. This shows rock layers that are more than 6,000 years old, built on top of each other, showing a timeline of rock.
Evolution was understood in layers by various scientists over the years. Some got small pieces of it in their earlier writings, but it was not truly put together until Charles Darwin's "Origin of Species." He got information from a collection of others previous writings, and his own trip to the Galapagos Islands, where he observed various differences among a species to adapt to their environments. According to his research, there were tortoises with elongated necks, that lived in areas with food that was higher in the air then in other places(Darwin). This is what one would take as an example of an adaptation, an adaptation being a feature that allows an organism to better survive in it’s environment.
Darwin’s investigation into evolution began when he trekked to the Galapagos Islands, where he would gather evidence that he would eventually put into his book. While in the Galapagos Islands, he discovered finches with beaks built to break into the specific type of nut that was on their island, with the birds on other islands also having corresponding beaks. He also found the tortoises that were previously mentioned, another key example of the adaptation of animals to their environments. This shows the ability, over ...
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...d as "the rapid evolution of many diverse species from ancestral species" (Nowicki). Punctuated equilibrium causes this, punctuated equilibrium being "bursts of evolutionary activity that are followed by long periods of speciation" (Nowicki). Adaptive radiation happens during these bursts, and that is how many species are connected to a common ancestor with each other.
Overall, evolution is a very broad subject, that is very controversial and causes many problems in the scientific community. What is laid out above is a collection of some of the most important principles of evolution, meant to convey a broader explanation of evolution, so those who may not know much about it, can now understand the basic facts. This is the very basics, so do not believe this is all the information. Use it with caution, because there are always people who know more than you.
Charles Darwin was an English biologist who, along with a few others, developed a biological concept that has been vulgarized and attacked from the moment his major work, The Origin of Species, was published in 1859. An accurate and brief picture of his contribution to biology is probably his own: Evolution is transmission with adaptation. Darwin saw in his epochal trip aboard the ship The Beagle in the 1830s what many others had seen but did not draw the proper conclusions. In the Galapagos Islands, off South America, Darwin noted that very large tortoises differed slightly from one island to the next. He noted also that finches also differed from one geographical location to the next. Some had shorter beaks, useful for cracking seeds. Some had long, sharp beaks, useful for prying insects out of their hiding places. Some had long tail feathers, others short ones.
Evolution is described, as being the change that occurs on a genetic level when a new generation spouts from an ancestral population. Change is destined to happen. That is why in the science of biology, the word evolution means descent with modification. Through various factors such as the temperature of the environment, humidity, and altitude a species will adapt to survive and will eventually pass on genetic traits that help the species next generation survive. In 1859, Charles Darwin, a geologist, published ‘The Origin of Species.’
The third part of the evolution theory is speciation. Speciation means that different groups of creatures that cannot exchange genes with one another cannot interbreed with one another.
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.
Children often play a game called telephone, where one child whispers a statement into another child's ear, and the statement is passed on to other children; at the end of the game the last child will repeat the statement that was told to him or her. The majority of the time, the statement said would be completely different than the original one. This is an example of evolution through natural selection; where somewhere along the life span of the statement, it was modified, and the modified statement was passed on to form a new statement.
Evolution in general, is a hard concept to grasp. There are multiple factors that effect the outcome a species, for example: genetics, nurture, nature, and the environment all play an important role. It was once said that species do not survive due to the fact that they are the strongest or the most intelligent, but because that species is the most responsive to change.
There are many different theories as to what evolution is, but they all conclude that evolution is a change in species over time. The modern theory of evolution is based on the concept of natural selection. Natural selection is the metapho...
The Galapagos Islands, located about 600 miles west of continental Ecuador, contain a rich history of settlement and exploration and represent a living example of evolution that is still relevant today. For centuries, this chain of volcanic islands has been used uniquely by various cultures based off distinct needs. What has remained the same however is the fact that island isolation has forced many animal and plant species to adapt differently from one another based off their island’s environmental conditions, creating a living model of microevolution over time. Today, these models tend to be the primary resources used by biology professors when teaching their students evolutionary topics.
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.
Have you ever just sat and thought to yourself how the universe was created also what it took to create the planets and living organisms. I am explaining the definition of “Evolution” as defined by the scientist Charles Darwin. “The process by which organisms change over time as a result of changes in heritable physical or behavioral traits. Changes that allow an organism to better adapt to it’s environment will help it survive and produce offspring.” Theory of Evolution which was first formulated in his book titled “On the Origin of Species” in the year 1859.
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.
Darwin’s observations from the islands made him want to come up with some explanation to why this occurred. He began to do research of each the species that had lived on these islands and observe all of the characteristics that had. He noticed that the islands h...
Darwin writes on how a species will adapt to its environment given enough time. When an animal gains a genetic edge over its competitors, be they of the same species or of another genus altogether, the animal has increased its chance of either procreation or adaptation. When this animal has this beneficial variance, the advantage becomes his and because of this, the trait is then passed on to the animals offspring.
Biological evolution is the name for the changes in gene frequency in a population of a species from generation to generation. Evolution offers explanation to why species genetically change over years and the diversity of life on Earth. Although it is generally accepted by the scientific community, Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution has been studied and debated for several decades. In 1859, Darwin published On The Origin of Species, which introduced the idea of evolutionary thought which he supported with evidence of one type of evolutionary mechanism, natural selection. Some of the main mechanisms of evolution are natural selection, mutation, and genetic drift. The idea that all life on Earth shares a common ancestor has been around for a long time but has risen to significance in society over the last two centuries.
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...