Lamarck's Theory Of Natural Selection

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Throughout my education, once I decided my ultimate interest is in Anthropology, the term natural selection is a something that I’ve been familiar with for some time. Natural selection is the process where organisms learn to adapt to their environment in which they fight to survive and reproduce. Charles Darwin’s first exposed his idea on natural selection in On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. In this paper I will discuss what elements have to be in place for natural selection to operate and how it exactly works. Then I will compare and contrast natural selection with Lamarck’s inheritance of acquired characteristics theory. First, one would need to understand the basis on which Darwin based his theory on for natural selection to occur. Natural …show more content…
All of these elements then produce a trait, either genetically (genotype) or physically (phenotype) of a species. From generation to generation, the fight to survive, or what Darwin called the “struggle for existence,” will favor one species over another causing a change in the density of certain traits in a population. Therefore, in order for natural selection to operate, a trait must be heritable and that trait must have its’ advantage in the fight for the resources needed to survive. If any of the four important elements do not occur, then a trait cannot bring forth the theory of natural selection. To explain how natural selection works, imagine a population of beetles that vary in color, some are green and some are brown. Seeing that the environment cannot fully