The Theory of Evolution essay

His ideas of evolution were controversial even to date as they conflict with the religious views relating to the origin and creation of the world and the creatures in it. Basically, the theory of evolution asserts that different species gradually evolved from simple life forms that had developed more than 3 billion years ago. This theory of evolution by Charles Darwin is one of the most substantiated theories from the history of science. Evolution by natural selection is among the basic mechanisms of evolution along with migration, mutation, and genetic drift. The fundamental ideas of this theory are that species of an organism changes over space and time. He defined the principal tenets of evolution by natural selection as the following; first, that there are more individuals that are produced in every generation and only those that adapt well to the environment survive.

Secondly, there exists phenotypic variation among individuals and this variation is can be passed over generations (it is heritable). Thirdly, only those individuals with suitable phenotypic traits survive. He referred to this as the survival of the fittest. Here, fitness refers to the ability to survive and pass copies of a population’s genes to the next generation. When some traits are heritable, others are subject to environmental influence and therefore influenced by conditions of the environment and have weak heritability. The high rate of population growth. Due to a high number of offspring that are produced by the populations of the organisms, the local resources may not suffice in supporting them. Darwin asserted that organism is in a competitive struggle for food so that life can be supported.

Organisms must, therefore, struggle to survive in that environment. During the industrial revolution, more than 70 species of moth were affected by industrial melanism (Darwin 228). According to studies on the peppered moth, the typical moth of the species had not a dark pattern but a light pattern during the pre-industrial period. The melanic moth, or the dark moth, were very rare. However, following the industrial revolution, soot with other industrial wastes caused darkening of the tree trunks and left lichens dead. Also, the light colored moth, which was common before the industrial revolution period become rare while the dark morph of moth became more and common. Some of them, just like woodpeckers, used a thorn to probe for insect larvae in woods.

According to Darwin (234), it appeared that each of them has some slight modifications from the commonly known finch in South of Africa 600 miles to the east. It appeared that therefore that formation of many species was driven by adaptive radiation. According to Darwin’s theory of evidence, it is evident that human beings are all of the same species on the basis that they all share a common ancestor who existed millions of years in the distant past. According to the theory, humans evolved from simple and less complicated forms from Australopithecus to Homo sapiens and now the Homo sapiens sapiens. Those organisms that are best suited in terms of traits survive the competition for resources and only them manages to produce more offspring to the next generation.