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The Scientific Method is a way to answer and ask scientific questions by creating a hypothesis and creating an experiment. The steps of the scientific method include: asking a question, background research, creating a hypothesis, test your hypothesis by doing an experiment, analyzing the data, drawing a conclusion, and finally publishing your results. There are many places in the book The Hot Zone by Richard Preston in which steps of the scientific method are used, the first one I found was during the Kitum Cave expedition. In the Kitum Cave expedition, Eugene Johnson set up an experiment to test if the source of the virus that infected Peter Cardinal and Charles Monet was inside Kitum Cave.
In this natural selection and genetics lab, a pair of alleles was randomly chosen from a cup of 100 alleles. There were 50 dominant and 50 recessive alleles. A pair of alleles was chosen randomly from the cup. The first time this was done all the organisms survived. The second time this was done the organisms that were homozygous recessive died due to the lack of an enzyme needed to digest grain.
According to Charles Darwin, using or disusing a certain trait can determine how a species will change overtime, "I think there can be no doubt that use in our domestic animals has strengthened and enlarged certain parts, and disuse diminished them; and that such modifications are inherited," (Darwin 175). Thus, Darwin is implying that when a species uses a certain quality for survival that trait is further developed to increase the likelihood of survival; for example, the beak shapes of finches are morphed to be better suited for certain foods. Darwin also implies that when a certain trait is not used that ability is diminished; for example, a mole cannot see because it lives in the dark most of its life and does not rely on the ability of sight (175-204). Moreover, how an animal or plant adapts is dependent on the use or disuse of a variation, and according to the scholar Noguera-Solano, "the origin of the variation does not arise in order to resolve the organism's needs to adapt" (Noguera-Solano). This means that the origin of the variation is changed from the adaptation in organisms.
Natural selection is organisms with traits that are best suited to their environment and are more likely to survive and reproduce. As stated in chapter 5 of Unraveling the Origins Controversy, “Natural selection is deemed the primary mechanism of non-random changes in the number of particular traits in a population” (David A. DeWitt, 2007). Some of the factors that limit natural selection are traits that are not heritable. Some examples are learned behaviors; diet induced traits, and behaviorally induced traits.
This chapter was about how natural selection can be change the world. Darwin decides to open with, “But the mere existence of individual variability and of some few well-marked varieties, though necessary as the foundation for the work, helps us but little in understanding how species arise in nature,” (60,Darwin). Darwin has shown that each living species has a job or can help make this world a better place. Darwin has had ideas on how each species originated on earth. We are know that animals and humans are able to reproduce more of itself, which allows its traits to be passed on.
Changes will occur in DNA mutations which is in the gene and this will pass from one generation to another. These affects could change an organisms appearance, how their body works and their behavior. Therefore, the new versions of a gene survives better than the old version and that animal will have more offspring and will inherit new version of the gene, which will pass on to their young ones. How natural selection is one of the key processes in evolutionary change? Natural selection is one of the key process and leads to evolutionary change when individuals that have a certain characteristics have a greater survival rate than the other organisms in a population, which passes these genes to their offsprings later on.
Over the course of time, with the revealing and disappearing of land bridges, through ice ages, with the changing of mountain ranges and islands, species have either found themselves isolated, and become more specialized in their modifications, or have been able to spread and breed a greater number of variations. This global reshaping is, without a doubt, impossible for artificial selection to replicate. Yes, it is possible to take, for instance, a lemur only found on the island of Madagascar and have it flourish in a forest in North America, but that is simply taking a species used to certain physical conditions and putting them in similar conditions just somewhere else. To suggest that man can replicate the highly specialized evolution of the echidna through artificial selection is ridiculous. It is, for the most part, the barriers and geological distribution that determine the ways in which a genus may change, not by any conceivable human power, and so long as the geography of the earth is changing, there will be no limit to the possible modifications species may
7. Natural selection Natural selection is the differential survival and generation of people because of contrasts in phenotype. It is a key system of advancement, the change in heritable attributes of a populace after some time. Charles Darwin advanced the expression "Natural selection", and contrasted it and fake choice. 8.
Human-kind’s Progression Inhibits the Process of Natural Selection “How did your existence come about?” Is that a question you’ve ever pondered? Well the answer is very simple to that proposed question: for the most part all living species alive have been a direct result of natural selection. Natural selection - The process whereby organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring.
Natural Selection Characteristic determination is that it is the system by which a living being that is most appropriate to its condition will survive and pass on its useful qualities in expanding numbers to the accompanying eras, while those life forms less suited to the earth will be disposed of. . “For example, some cheetahs can run faster than other cheetahs and will therefore be more likely to catch their prey. Organisms that blend into their background and remain hidden from their predators will have a better chance of surviving than those members of their species that cannot” (Arnold, 2009). “Peppered moths - the deer mice are like the classic example of natural selection the peppered moths of northern England” (Arnold, 2009).
Bat evolution is a quite the mystery. Scientists have been trying to find out where Chiroptera (bats) came from for a very long time. Even though they are one of the biggest groups of mammals, their background is uncertain. The reason bat evolution is hard to understand is because their fossil record has many gaps. This is because bat bones are very light, therefore they decay quickly.
Knowledge within a discipline develops according to the principles of natural selection. How useful is this metaphor? With millions of scholars and researchers dedicating their entire lives to finding answers to the unsolved mysteries of the universe, we can only hope that our knowledge is constantly developing in a positive manner with each new discovery. From Bronsted-Lowry’s acid-base theory improving upon that of Arrhenius’ to tribes developing stronger and more efficient tools, it is reasonable to think that our current understandings of the world are greater than our predecessors. One may even argue that knowledge within a discipline develops according to the principles of natural selection.
Selective breeding, also known as artificial selection, is when humans take the place of nature in breeding two organisms with beneficial characteristics to produce offspring that are strong. Natural selection and artificial selection are both similar in that they both force change in a species by benefiting the organisms with strong characteristics; however, natural selection is a force caused by nature, while artificial selection is when humans choose which organisms survive and reproduce. This process has a long history, especially when humans have bred plants with “beneficial” characteristics to get “stronger” offspring, an example being when cows that produce an ample amount of milk are bred. Several types of selective breeding exist:
Over the history of life on earth, the attributes of organisms have changed and diversified intensely through the progression of evolution. The structures and functions of organisms are products of evolutionary change in populations in response to their particular environments. For example, many plants in hot dry climates have small leaves with waxy surfaces to reduce water loss by evaporation. Such characteristics of structure and function that suit an organism to the conditions of its environment are called adaptations. This close correspondence of entities to their environments derives from a process unique to biological organisms: natural selection.
In the environment, individuals have the capability to produce more offspring than the environment can successfully sustain. Consequently, numerous organisms will not survive long enough to reproduce offspring. Therefore, species will adapt in various ways over time to enhance their ability to survive. The theory of evolution by natural selection was created by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace (Schussler 2014). Natural selection portrays a species ability to adapt over time from generation to generation to survive and be the most advantageous reproducer and predator (Freeman 2014).
