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In Chapter III, Darwin asks how varieties "which I have called incipient species" become distinct species, and in answer introduces the key concept he calls "natural selection"; [123] in the fifth edition he adds, "But the expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer, of the Survival of the Fittest, is more accurate, and is sometimes equally ...
Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype.It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations.
The idea of evolution by natural selection was proposed by Charles Darwin in 1859, but evolutionary biology, as an academic discipline in its own right, emerged during the period of the modern synthesis in the 1930s and 1940s. [8] It was not until the 1980s that many universities had departments of evolutionary biology.
In what has occasionally been seen as a prefiguration of a concept of natural selection, Empedocles accepted the spontaneous generation of life, but held that different forms, made up of differing combinations of parts, spontaneously arose as though by trial and error: successful combinations formed the individuals present in the observer's ...
Other evolutionary forces outside of mutation and natural selection can also play a role or be incorporated into experimental evolution studies, such as genetic drift and gene flow. [3] The organism used is decided by the experimenter, based on the hypothesis to be tested.
Darwin explained sexual selection as a combination of "female choosiness" and "direct competition between males". [32] Antoinette Blackwell, one of the first women to write a critique of Darwin. Darwin's theories of evolution by natural selection were used to try to show women's place in society was the result of nature. [33]
The concept of sexual selection was introduced by Charles Darwin as an element of his theory of natural selection. [1] Sexual selection is a biological way one sex chooses a mate for the best reproductive success. Most compete with others of the same sex for the best mate to contribute their genome for future generations.
Besides providing evidence of common descent, he introduced a mechanism to explain it: natural selection. According to Dennett, natural selection is a mindless, mechanical and algorithmic process—Darwin's dangerous idea. The third chapter introduces the concept of "skyhooks" and "cranes" (see below).