Can someone explain the term "natural selection"? I'm confused about this. any help would be appreciated.

Question

someone had told a friend of mine that she was the reason for natural selection.

Answer 1

That is a cruel thing to say to someone. The person that said this is basically telling your friend she is unfit for existence (she's a perfect case for natural selection, unfit to reproduce and create offspring or should have been eliminated at birth as obviously unfit).

Answer 2

Any organism must be able to obtain food, water, etc. and anything else that it needs to survive and flourish from the environment in which it lives. And, in doing so, it will be in competition with all of the -other- organisisms in that environment. Any small change in the organism which gives it an edge in the 'survival game' will cause that organism to do slightly bettr than all of it's 'cousins'. As a result, that small change (called a 'trait' or 'characteristic') will be handed down by that organism to all of its descendents which will, in turn, have a bit of an edge over the competition and survive better. Over many generations, this trait becomes 'dominant' within the species and the species has 'evolved' a new trait. One which gives them a survival advantage. It is this process, by which desireable traits survive and flourish while undesireablt traits slowly die out, that is called 'natural selection'.

Doug

Answer 3

Natural Selection is Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. Meaning, he came up with an explanation for how the world evolved. Natural selection means things (plants, animals, bugs, etc.) have survived, and changed to survive. It's like the survival of the fittest, but it's the survival of those able to adapt.

Answer 4

Science probably has a grander definition of this than mine, but I've always believed it to mean some species become extinct in the natural course of things -- that is, because of nature, not man.