Gradualism Vs Gradualism

Evolution, a process that occurs in the ever changing environment in which organisms adapt to their surroundings. Evolution is commonly looked at from two opposing viewpoints, gradualism and punctuated equilibrium. The current debate is which method better explains the way it all comes together. In a nutshell, the punctuated equilibrium theory states that evolutionary change is connected in speciation events, and that most species stay relatively the same once they have come into being. The lack of change over millions of years is referred to as stasis. Then on the other hand, there is gradualism, a much more plausible theory. Gradualism is heavily based around natural selection, essentially stating that the features of the species are gradually changed over time as a result of removing less fit organisms from the breeding stock. Gradualism seems to be the more likely theory because in nature things are constantly changing along with the

Natural selection slowly takes place, which in turn changes the average features of a species by taking out less fit individuals from the population, so they can not produce offspring as they are out of the breeding stock completely. If the process is continued for a significant enough amount of time, then a single species may go through indistinguishable changes until it is eventually a new species. The previous breed will then go through phyletic extinction. Overall, gradualism is a type of both selection and variation that happens gradually over small periods of time and it difficult to notice because the changes are often slight. The small variations occur in order for the organism to fit slightly better to its surrounding environment, and a few more individuals with more of the helpful trait survive, thus leading to a more fit population. The changes that take place in gradualism are slow, constant, and