bio question?

Question

About 40 years after the publication of On the Origin of Species, genetics was recognized as a science. At that time, support for Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection increased among scientists, Explain how genetics supports Darwin's theory.

Answer 1

In biology, evolution is the change in the inherited characteristics, or traits, of a population of organisms. Heritable traits are encoded in the genetic material of an organism (usually DNA); changes in this genetic material (mutation) and the subsequent spread of these changes in the population drives evolution.

Natural selection, one of the processes that determines whether changes spread within the population, is a result of the advantage conferred on organisms with beneficial traits. If these traits increase the evolutionary fitness of an organism, they will be more likely to survive and reproduce than other organisms in the population. In doing so, they pass more copies of those heritable traits on to the next generation, causing advantageous traits to become more common in each generation; the corresponding decrease in fitness for deleterious traits results in their become rarer.

This simple process has a powerful effect, namely, adaptation: the gradual accumulation of new beneficial traits and the preservation of existing ones results in a population of organisms becoming better suited to its environment and ecological niche.

Though natural selection is decidedly non-random in its manner of action, other more capricious forces have a strong hand in the process of evolution. Genetic drift results in heritable traits becoming more or less common simply due to random chance. This aimless process has a profound influence, and in some instances may overwhelm the effects of natural selection - even a horse with favored odds can lose.

Answer 2

Darwin's theory had people under the search for different thing for an long amount of time so in my opinion genetics do not support Darwin's theory.

Answer 3

because of the randomness of crossing over during metaphase of meiosis...thus there is a tangible component relating the natural variation between offspring with the competition for limited resources...

1. many more species are born than can survive, and thus there are limited resources
2. there is variation between individuals in which some individuals are better competitors at acquiring limited resources
3. those who survive are more likely to reproduce
4. those who reproduce are likely to pass onto their offspring their "fit" traits