Darwin

Darwin

It has been over 180 years since the HMS Beagle set sail with the now famous Charles Darwin aboard.   Sailing around the globe and collecting thousands of specimen, Darwin had the opportunity to discover new species and create new theories on why they existed.   Darwin challenged the idea of intelligent design, which devout traditionalist clung to, with ideas of his own.   Throughout the process Darwin created one of the most well known biological theories of all time explained in his book, The Origin of Species.   In his book he discussed two distinct   yet closely related topics: the theory of evolution and the theory of natural selection.
Evolution was not a new idea when Darwin came out with his theory, yet all others paled in comparison.   Darwin's theory stated that evolution is change inherited within a population that results from interaction with their environment.   These changes take place over long periods of time and therefore, explains the origin of new species as well as the elimination of existing species (fossils).   Older species are related to todays through decent over millions of years. Evolution usually follows certain patterns. One of these patterns is convergent evolution in which unrelated species in similar environments, facing similar challenges sometimes evolve similar characteristics. An example of this is the evolution of European rabbits and South American Maras.   Another example of patterns in evolution is punctuated equilibrium where evolution may seem to pause for a long period of time and have short spurts of intense rapid change.
Natural selection differs from evolution in the fact that natural selection is a mechanism for evolution explaining how the process of change occurs.   Darwin came out with four observations and three deductions from his travels, which composed his hypothesis.   Natural selection is the process in which the particular individuals within a species best adapt to their environment, usually survive, and pass on...