what is natural selection?

Answer 1

--Is part of the evolutionary uproven theory!

--*** g97 5/8 p. 5 Is Evolution’s Foundation Missing? ***

Is Evolution’s Foundation Missing?

WHAT is the essence of Darwin’s theory of evolution? “In its full-throated, biological sense, . . . evolution means a process whereby life arose from nonliving matter and subsequently developed entirely by natural means.” Darwinian evolution postulates that “virtually all of life, or at least all of its most interesting features, resulted from natural selection working on random variation.”—Darwin’s Black Box—The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, by Michael Behe, associate professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University, Pennsylvania, U.S.A

...p. 11

The Problems of the Beginning of Life

No matter how plausible Darwin’s theory of evolution may appear to be in the eyes of some scientists, they must ultimately face the question, Even if we assume that forms of living things evolved by natural selection, how did life get its start? In other words, the problem lies, not in survival of the fittest, but in arrival of the fittest and the first! However, as Darwin’s remarks on the evolution of the eye indicate, he was not concerned with the problem of how life began. He wrote: “How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light hardly concerns us more than how life itself originated.”

Answer 2

Natural selection is the idea that individuals within a given species have different traits. Some of these traits give their owners an advantages in the struggle for survival. Which ever individuals do manage to survive to adulthood and then successfully reproduce may pass those traits on to their offspring. Because of this process the whole population of this species will have those traits after many generations.

For example if a population of rabbits is threatened by a predator the ones most likely to escape being caught and eaten may be the ones that can run (hop) the fastest. More fast rabbits escape to breed and pass their ability to their young so over time the average speed of the group increases.

Or say the winters start to get colder. Rabbits with longer fur may survive the winters in greater numbers than others and thus be able to breed more little rabbits with longer fur and in several generations the whole population has longer coats.

Answer 3

Natural selection is commonly known as "survival of the fittest" but that is just a part of the concept.

Two scientists, Charles Darwin & Alfred Russell Wallace, discovered, on their own, that plants and animals had certain characteristics that enabled them to survive & adapt to their surroundings. Both of these scientists determined that Natural Selection is a mechanism for evolution to occur.

A better definition of natural selection would be:
The selection for and against organisms, by the environment, where those selected for will be able to pass on their adaptive traits to the next generation, while those selected against would not survive as well or be able to pass on their traits to the next generation.

Answer 4

natural selection is the competition for resources among individuals of a species. It's the concept that the ones that are most fit are the ones that survive. An example would be cheetahs, the slower ones aren't able to catch food as well as the faster ones, so they won't eat as much. They may starve, they may be selected against sexually, but the faster cheetahs are more fit to catch food, which means they'll live till tomorrow and be able to reproduce and make more cheetahs.

Answer 5

The "selection" that nature makes. Keep in mind the first rule here: you can't give what you don't have. All natural things can only "give" what they already have in their genetic code. Thus, "natural selection" can only produce what the the being's respective genetic code is able to give: more of the same thing. The phrase "natural selection" is used to explain evolution from simple to complex, but what we actually see in all life is only two things: permanence of form or extinction.

Answer 6

Natural selection is an organism adaptinig to its environment. Organisms that have mutations that are beneficial and help it will thrive, while those without will die. See Wikipedia for more info.

Answer 7

Survival of the Fittest....

example: an albino moth on a tree is going to eaten much quicker than it's camoflouge counterpart. the camo moth was more "fit" for the environment

Answer 8

Survival of the Fittest - those species that are able to adapt successfully to teir environment will survive - those that aren't able to will become extinct

Answer 9

http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange1/current/lectures/selection/selection.html