Darwin’s Dangerous Idea

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At the beginning of the 1800s, scientists knew of some kinds of fossils, and were very aware of homologous and vestigial structures. Many scientists suspected that some kind of evolution had given rise to living things around them. However, they had no theory to explain how evolution might have occurred. Two scientists led the way in the search for a mechanism of evolution. The first was Jean Lamarck. The second was one of the greatest figures in biology, Charles Darwin.

What is evolution? Evolution is a change in the traits of living organisms over generations. Since the development of modern genetics in the 1940s, evolution has been defined more specifically as a change in the frequency of alleles in a population from one generation to the next. In other fields evolution is used more generally to refer to any process of change over time.

There are many different theories as to what evolution is, but they all conclude that evolution is a change in species over time. The modern theory of evolution is based on the concept of natural selection. Natural selection is the metapho...

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