Darwins Dangerous Idea - Essay Example

It was such traits that could provide better options and enable it to continue to reproduce. l and means by which to reproduce. This he named ‘natural selection ‘ or the survival of the fittest.’ The theory proposed that those individuals with the more successful adaptations would be able to get more food, and so would be healthier, live longer, and have more success at reproduction. The scientific world of the time was aware of variation, but the first principle of Darwin’s theory is that individuals vary in their heritable traits, so much so that no two living beings are exactly similar.

He first became aware of this because of his close observations of the various plant and animal species collected by him from the remote Galapagos Islands. He realized that although the species there resembled those from elsewhere they were actually unique to the islands, and in many cases to particular islands. Following the expedition, he concluded that the environment affected evolution. The organisms best suited to a particular environment not only survive, but also become more and more sophisticated and specialized.

Darwin noticed that variation was a characteristic belonging to all living beings and that through reproduction these traits would continue down the generations, the principle of genetics. He wrote about species adapting to its environment over time, giving it perhaps a genetic advantage over and above competitors, whether of the same species or from a different genus. Such a successful trait would be passed on to off spring. He also became aware that some species did not survive. In 1859 he wrote his famous book ‘ On the Origin of Species’.

He wrote:- Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. ( Dennet. (1995). p. 64) Darwin also described how, through many millions of years and because of the effects of both man and nature, all species have been undergoing a process of trial and error. It was, he said, in that way that the natural world has established the many anomalies mankind finds so beneficial that it is hard to believe that they are just there by chance.

Darwin’s theories about evolution or change over time were a major scientific breakthrough , but also has affected the way in which the world is viewed and thought of. He revolutionized scientific thought.