Similarities Between Artificial And Natural Selection

Yet another way it is obvious that artificial and natural selection are not directly analogous is through studying the evolution of beings in the context of geological distribution. Darwin attributes the differences and similarities between various species, not to the climate or physical conditions of the regions, but rather to the barriers, or lack thereof, which separate regions from one another (Darwin, pg. 346). Geological barriers are what determine the ease or difficulty in which species can migrate form are to area. For example, oceans are large barriers that make it difficult for terrestrial beings to spread to different continents, whereas the continents can prevent sea life from spreading to different oceans. Darwin describes this phenomena by comparing Australia, South Africa, and parts of South America as having almost identical living conditions, but “it would not be possible to

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