Natural Selection and Darwin essays

Natural Selection and Darwin essays In Darwins time most scientists believed that each organism and each adaptation was the work of the creator., but theories began to develop by a number of historians stating that evolutionary changes were an effect to changes in nature. There were many reasons for this, such as geological studies were reveling that the earth was much older than stated in biblical creation. Another reason was the similarities between different organisms. When Darwin traveled to the Galapagos Islands he noticed slight variations that made tortoises from different islands distinct. He also observed from island to island the vast number of finches had slight differences. Darwin also noticed that they all seemed to resemble the main finch on the mainland of Equador. This observation had great influence of Darwins thinking and he began to formulate his Theory. Darwins theory of Evolution consists of four main parts. The first one was that organisms have changed over time and the ones living today are different form those of the past also many organisms have become extinct over time. The second part was that all organisms are derived by common ancestors by the branching process. Populations split into different species but they all have one common ancestor. This part of the theory provided an explanation as to why similar species tended to be in the same geographical area. The third part stated that change is gradual and slow, taking place over a long period of time. This explains the fact that no scientist has observed a sudden appearance of a new species. The fourth part of this is that the mechanism of evolutionary change was natural selection. Natural Selection is a process that occurs over successive generations. Darwins had a in depth reasoning for how it works. It starts with the statement that if all the offspring that organisms can produce were to survive and reproduce they would soon overrun the earth. To pre...