Answers to Evolution Questions - Research Paper Example

Population growth rate in majority of populations is very high resulting in more offspring every year than that can be supported by the local resources. This leads to a struggle for resources and in turn not all offspring survive. Differential reproduction - Those individuals with traits that are best suited to adapt to the local conditions are more likely to survive and reproduce. That is, more offspring will be contributed to the next generation by these individuals (James, 2010). The process of natural selection is one in which individuals with variations that are more favourable (to survive local conditions) than others are supported by the struggle for resources and as a result affect the population’s trait frequency (Breed & Moore, 2012).

The random and gradual process of natural selection results in some traits being more common and some less common while some can be completely absent in the future generations. A change in a trait’s genetic code is called mutation and this gives rise to variation. Mutations happen by chance and are in no way related to adapting to local conditions. Fitness is another concept that is at the core of natural selection. Fitness is the ability of an organism to reproduce. If an organism can reproduce more than others in its species, then the genes of this species will be more common among the future generations.

A recent example of natural selection is field mustard. . An experiment conducted showed that plants from seeds of 2004 had earlier flowering times than those of 1997. Therefore, in order to survive field mustard plants had to develop the trait to flower early and they did develop this (Judson, 2008). 2. The best example of human evolution over the past 10,000 years is the evolution of the human brain. Research shows that human brain has evolved rapidly in the last 10,000 years. The reason cited for this is that natural selection might have favoured different dispositions and abilities due to increased complexity of social order and mechanics.

As humans graduated from hunter-gatherer communities to farming communities, there were need for different skills and abilities such as mathematical ability and other intellectual abilities. Brain development corresponded to this through evolution (McAuliffe, 2009). Also it is argued that the development in the functioning of the hand has had an impact on brain evolution. As the functioning hand is become more complex from manufacturing of tools to use of more sophisticated device the brain has developed more motoring abilities accordingly.

That is, our hands today are more capable of fine-grained motor skills and in response brain has developed abilities to motor these skills (Ruse, 2012). Even though there isn’t much research done on this but there definitely will be effects of use of computer keyboards on the evolution of the brain. 3. A scientific theory is one which is a result of extensive research followed by experiments and observations conducted repeatedly that can be tested in the natural world. As a result of this, a scientific theory must be able to explain the observations through the development of mechanisms such as natural