What's The Fuss About Free Evolution?

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What's The Fuss About Free Evolution?

What is Free Evolution?

Free evolution is the idea that the natural processes of organisms can cause them to develop over time. This includes the creation of new species as well as the alteration of the appearance of existing ones.

A variety of examples have been provided of this, such as different varieties of fish called sticklebacks that can live in salt or fresh water, as well as walking stick insect varieties that are attracted to particular host plants. These reversible traits, however, cannot be the reason for fundamental changes in body plans.

Evolution through Natural Selection

The development of the myriad living organisms on Earth is an enigma that has fascinated scientists for many centuries. Charles Darwin's natural selectivity is the most well-known explanation. This happens when people who are more well-adapted survive and reproduce more than those who are less well-adapted. As time passes, the number of well-adapted individuals grows and eventually creates a new species.

Natural selection is an ongoing process and involves the interaction of three factors including reproduction, variation and inheritance.  에볼루션 바카라  and mutations increase the genetic diversity of the species. Inheritance is the passing of a person's genetic traits to their offspring, which includes both dominant and recessive alleles. Reproduction is the process of producing fertile, viable offspring. This can be done through sexual or asexual methods.

Natural selection only occurs when all the factors are in harmony. For instance, if an allele that is dominant at one gene causes an organism to survive and reproduce more frequently than the recessive allele, the dominant allele will become more prominent within the population. However, if the gene confers a disadvantage in survival or decreases fertility, it will disappear from the population. The process is self reinforcing meaning that an organism that has an adaptive trait will survive and reproduce much more than those with a maladaptive trait. The more offspring an organism can produce the better its fitness that is determined by its ability to reproduce itself and survive. People with good characteristics, like longer necks in giraffes or bright white patterns of color in male peacocks are more likely survive and have offspring, so they will make up the majority of the population over time.

Natural selection is only a force for populations, not individuals. This is a crucial distinction from the Lamarckian evolution theory which holds that animals acquire traits either through use or lack of use. If a giraffe expands its neck in order to catch prey and the neck grows longer, then its children will inherit this characteristic. The difference in neck length between generations will continue until the giraffe's neck becomes so long that it can not breed with other giraffes.

Evolution through Genetic Drift

In the process of genetic drift, alleles of a gene could attain different frequencies within a population due to random events. At some point, one will reach fixation (become so widespread that it cannot be removed by natural selection) and other alleles fall to lower frequency. This can lead to dominance in extreme. The other alleles are essentially eliminated and heterozygosity has diminished to a minimum. In a small number of people, this could result in the complete elimination the recessive gene. This is known as the bottleneck effect and is typical of an evolution process that occurs when the number of individuals migrate to form a group.

A phenotypic 'bottleneck' can also occur when the survivors of a disaster like an outbreak or mass hunting incident are concentrated in an area of a limited size. The surviving individuals will be largely homozygous for the dominant allele, which means that they will all share the same phenotype and therefore have the same fitness characteristics. This could be caused by earthquakes, war, or even plagues. The genetically distinct population, if it remains vulnerable to genetic drift.

Walsh Lewens, Walsh, and Ariew define drift as a departure from the expected values due to differences in fitness. They cite the famous example of twins who are genetically identical and have exactly the same phenotype. However one is struck by lightning and dies, whereas the other continues to reproduce.


This kind of drift can play a significant part in the evolution of an organism. It is not the only method for evolution. The main alternative is to use a process known as natural selection, in which the phenotypic diversity of the population is maintained through mutation and migration.

Stephens claims that there is a significant distinction between treating drift as a force, or an underlying cause, and treating other causes of evolution, such as mutation, selection, and migration as forces or causes. Stephens claims that a causal process account of drift allows us separate it from other forces and this distinction is crucial. He argues further that drift has both an orientation, i.e., it tends to eliminate heterozygosity.  바카라 에볼루션  has a size, which is determined based on the size of the population.

Evolution by Lamarckism

When high school students study biology they are often introduced to the work of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744 - 1829). His theory of evolution is often referred to as "Lamarckism" and it states that simple organisms grow into more complex organisms via the inheritance of characteristics which result from an organism's natural activities, use and disuse. Lamarckism is illustrated through the giraffe's neck being extended to reach higher leaves in the trees. This could cause the necks of giraffes that are longer to be passed on to their offspring who would then become taller.

Lamarck was a French Zoologist. In his lecture to begin his course on invertebrate zoology held at the Museum of Natural History in Paris on 17 May 1802, he presented an innovative concept that completely challenged the previous understanding of organic transformation. According to Lamarck, living creatures evolved from inanimate matter by a series of gradual steps. Lamarck was not the first to suggest this but he was thought of as the first to give the subject a comprehensive and general treatment.

The prevailing story is that Lamarckism became a rival to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, and that the two theories fought out in the 19th century. Darwinism ultimately won and led to what biologists call the Modern Synthesis. The Modern Synthesis theory denies that acquired characteristics can be inherited and instead suggests that organisms evolve by the symbiosis of environmental factors, like natural selection.

Lamarck and his contemporaries supported the notion that acquired characters could be passed on to the next generation. However, this idea was never a major part of any of their evolutionary theories. This is largely due to the fact that it was never validated scientifically.

It's been more than 200 years since Lamarck was born and in the age genomics there is a vast amount of evidence that supports the heritability of acquired characteristics. This is sometimes referred to as "neo-Lamarckism" or, more commonly epigenetic inheritance. It is a variant of evolution that is just as valid as the more well-known Neo-Darwinian theory.

Evolution by adaptation

One of the most common misconceptions about evolution is that it is driven by a type of struggle to survive. In reality, this notion misrepresents natural selection and ignores the other forces that determine the rate of evolution. The struggle for survival is more precisely described as a fight to survive in a specific environment, which may involve not only other organisms, but as well the physical environment.

To understand how evolution functions, it is helpful to consider what adaptation is. The term "adaptation" refers to any characteristic that allows a living thing to live in its environment and reproduce. It could be a physical feature, like feathers or fur. It could also be a trait of behavior, like moving towards shade during the heat, or escaping the cold at night.

The survival of an organism depends on its ability to extract energy from the environment and interact with other living organisms and their physical surroundings. The organism must have the right genes to produce offspring, and must be able to access enough food and other resources. Furthermore, the organism needs to be capable of reproducing itself at a high rate within its niche.

These elements, in conjunction with mutation and gene flow can result in an alteration in the percentage of alleles (different varieties of a particular gene) in the population's gene pool. As time passes, this shift in allele frequencies can lead to the emergence of new traits, and eventually new species.

Many of the characteristics we admire in animals and plants are adaptations. For example, lungs or gills that draw oxygen from air feathers and fur for insulation long legs to run away from predators, and camouflage to hide. However, a thorough understanding of adaptation requires a keen eye to the distinction between physiological and behavioral traits.

Physiological adaptations like the thick fur or gills are physical characteristics, whereas behavioral adaptations, like the desire to find friends or to move into the shade in hot weather, aren't. It is also important to keep in mind that the absence of planning doesn't make an adaptation. In fact, failure to think about the implications of a decision can render it ineffective, despite the fact that it appears to be logical or even necessary.