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Charles Darwin's Theory Of Natural Selection

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Charles Darwin, born on February 12, 1809, was a British scientist who is best known for being the main contributor and supporter of evolution and his publications that convinced people, and many generations after, to also back his theory and observations. Full of curiosity, 22 year old Charles Darwin set sail aboard the HMS Beagle for five years as a naturalist. While at sea, he observed the vast biodiversity in many places, and compared the differences between them. While in the Galapagos Islands, he noticed different kinds of animals, and the distinct similarities and differences between them, such as the finches. As Darwin examined the different finches, he noted how they are all comparatively the same, besides their bills. The finches …show more content…

Some of Darwin’s influencers were Charles Lyell, Thomas Malthus, and Gregor Mendel, who familiarized him with geology, proposed that the earth was eons of years old, introduced the idea of competition between organisms, and how it affects survival and reproducing, and showed that traits are inherited. Using his observations and scientific influences, Darwin formulated his hypothesis of the Theory of Natural Selection, which was that organisms most adapted to their environment would survive to the next generation and pass on their traits. Natural selection is any external factor that regulates population size. The blueprint for this theory was hereditary variation combined with the struggle for survival through competition would result in the survival of the fittest by natural selection. Darwin attempted to explain natural selection through breeding experiments with pigeons, and recorded other results from breeders of different animals. The goal in these experiments was to make offspring with different traits from that of their parents, but in this process, Darwin only explained man-made selection, not …show more content…

Microevolution is “the theory that natural selection can, over time, take an organism and transform it into a more specialized species of that organism, whereas macroevolution is “ the hypothesis that processes similar to those at work in microevolution can, over eons of time, transform an organism into a completely different kind of organism.” The distinction between micro and macroevolution is very comprehensible. Microevolution indicates how there can be similarities and differences in species that gives the specialized species unique abilities through slight changes in their bodies while staying relatively the same, such as the finches and their individual bills. However, microevolution does not explain how there can be a drastic change in the species, so much that it moves to a new classification, which is something that is endeavored by macroevolution. Macroevolution tries to manifest that over eons of time, an organism can transform into a completely different kind of organism, and that one, non-living cell mutated into everything we see currently. Most scientists see microevolution as a scientific fact, or at least a theory, because it has a great deal of evidence by itself, has observations to support it, and is testable using the scientific method. On the other hand, macroevolution is infamous among scientists today, and is not agreed

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