Understanding Natural Selection: The Birth of Species

We are who we are because of a biological process called natural selection. The theory of biological evolution by natural selection first exposed by Charles Darwin (1859) is probably the most revolutionary idea in the history of human thought. Surprisingly, despite the crucial importance for the understanding of ourselves as a species and other biological species, few men actually understand or even know, the natural mechanism that created us. Never a seemingly simple concept was so difficult to understand. It 's like natural selection, creating an intelligent species like ours, while hiding the elemental biological rationale behind its operation. But I suspect that the ultimate reason that natural selection is not part

Species that now populate the Earth come from other species that existed in the past, through a process of descent with modification. Biological evolution is the historical process of transformation from one species in other descendant species, including the extinction of most of the species that have ever existed. One of the most romantic ideas in the evolution of life is that any two living organisms, different as they are, they share a common ancestor sometime in the past. We and any current chimpanzee share an ancestor of 5 million years. We also have a common ancestor with any bacteria that exist today, although time this predecessor to soar in this case more than 3000 million years. However, the idea of evolution by itself is an open concept, is a mechanical description of change does not say anything about the engine or the creative force behind the transformation. Thus, in principle, evolution can be driven by immanent laws of matter, or a divine creator or by blind forces,

Ideally, the selection should be detected in nature in action, at the very moment it happens. In this way we ensure that is the selection, and no other process, which tends to alter the proportions of the characters in a population. An organization usually has a complex life cycle and the number of offspring that leaves throughout his life (total efficiency), is the end result of his success at different stages of their life cycle. -Structures can be described adaptations and / or behaviors- for every moment of the life cycle, so that steps can be seen as natural selection units. Thus, secondary, such as large and complex horned deer (Cervus elaphus), sexual characteristics are understood as specific adaptations for mating. A stage on which you can define an episode or selection process are known as the components selection. A typical component selection is the mating success and sexual selection in sexual organisms. If one or more individuals mate more than the rest of the population, keeping other things being equal (ie individuals that mate more are not, for example, more sterile than the rest), then these individuals leave more offspring and their heritable characteristics associated with success in matching increase in the population.