Natural Selection
Natural Selection
Darwin’s theory of natural selection provides an explanation for changes in species over time.
Learning Outcome: Provide the assumptions of the theory of natural selection, and examples of natural selection in action shaping species over time.
During his years writing Origins, Darwin bred pigeons, selecting parents with desired traits and predicting that those traits would appear in the offspring. This is now often referred to “artificial selection” for traits by humans in contrast to “natural selection” when nature impacts which traits become more frequent in a species.
We’ll cover artificial selection in the next guide; here we will take a closer look at natural selection with a “VISTA” model.
Watch this video; you can select the closed captioning “cc” option if you would like to see the text.
Take a moment and review your notes. Think of an explanation, in your own words, for what the letters V-I-S-T- and-A stand for.
Check your understanding with the next video.
Watch this video; you can select the closed captioning “cc” option if you would like to see the text.
Explain why you need to have genetic variation for Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection, and evolution as we know it, to actually work.
Check your notes to be sure you have recorded enough information from the last two videos to answer this question.
Darwin’s theory of natural selection profoundly changed the way people look at the world, to think that every species living on Earth today descended from a common ancestral species, far back in time.
There is solace in this interconnectivity and also a loss of individuality, the idea that humans are not completely distinct and separate from other species. We experience this tension to this day.
In the next section you will see how the branching connectedness of species is depicted with tree diagrams.
Check your knowledge – Natural Selection
Review your notes. Do you understand the theory of natural selection well enough to be able to explain it to someone else? If so, move forward to the next page.
Learning Objective:
Provide the assumptions of the theory of natural selection, and examples of natural selection in action shaping species over time.
Go back to Darwin Page
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