15 Best Documentaries About Free Evolution

What is Free Evolution?

Free evolution is the notion that natural processes can lead to the development of organisms over time. This includes the appearance and growth of new species.

Many examples have been given of this, such as different varieties of stickleback fish that can live in salt or fresh water, as well as walking stick insect varieties that are attracted to specific host plants. These are mostly reversible traits however, are not able to explain fundamental changes in basic body plans.

Evolution by Natural Selection

The evolution of the myriad living creatures on Earth is an enigma that has fascinated scientists for decades. Charles Darwin's natural selection theory is the best-established explanation. This process occurs when individuals who are better-adapted have more success in reproduction and survival than those who are less well-adapted. As time passes, the number of well-adapted individuals grows and eventually forms an entirely new species.

Natural selection is a cyclical process that is characterized by the interaction of three elements: variation, inheritance and reproduction. Sexual reproduction and mutations increase genetic diversity in an animal species. Inheritance is the transfer of a person's genetic characteristics to the offspring of that person that includes dominant and recessive alleles. Reproduction is the process of generating viable, fertile offspring. This can be accomplished through sexual or asexual methods.

Natural selection can only occur when all these elements are in equilibrium. For example when the dominant allele of one gene causes an organism to survive and reproduce more frequently than the recessive allele, the dominant allele will become more prevalent in the population. If the allele confers a negative advantage to survival or reduces the fertility of the population, it will go away. The process is self-reinforcing, meaning that a species with a beneficial characteristic is more likely to survive and reproduce than one with a maladaptive characteristic. The more offspring an organism produces, the greater its fitness, which is measured by its ability to reproduce and survive. People with desirable traits, like having a longer neck in giraffes or bright white colors in male peacocks are more likely survive and produce offspring, and thus will eventually make up the majority of the population in the future.

Natural selection is a factor in populations and not on individuals. This is a major distinction from the Lamarckian theory of evolution, which claims that animals acquire traits through use or neglect. If a giraffe stretches its neck to catch prey and the neck grows longer, then the children will inherit this characteristic. The difference in neck size between generations will continue to grow until the giraffe becomes unable to breed with other giraffes.

Evolution by Genetic Drift

Genetic drift occurs when alleles from the same gene are randomly distributed in a group. Eventually, one of them will reach fixation (become so common that it is unable to be eliminated through natural selection), while the other alleles drop to lower frequency. In extreme cases this, it leads to dominance of a single allele. The other alleles are eliminated, and heterozygosity falls to zero. In a small group, this could result in the complete elimination the recessive gene. This is known as the bottleneck effect and is typical of an evolutionary process that occurs whenever the number of individuals migrate to form a population.

A phenotypic bottleneck can also occur when the survivors of a disaster like an outbreak or mass hunting event are concentrated in a small area. The survivors will be mostly homozygous for the dominant allele which means they will all share the same phenotype and 에볼루션사이트 therefore have the same fitness traits. This could be caused by war, 에볼루션코리아 earthquakes, or even plagues. The genetically distinct population, if left vulnerable to genetic drift.

Walsh, Lewens and Ariew define drift as a departure from expected values due to differences in fitness. They give the famous example of twins that are genetically identical and have exactly the same phenotype. However one is struck by lightning and dies, whereas the other lives to reproduce.

This kind of drift can play a crucial role in the evolution of an organism. But, it's not the only method to evolve. The main alternative is a process called natural selection, where the phenotypic variation of the population is maintained through mutation and migration.

Stephens asserts that there is a major difference between treating drift as a force or as a cause and treating other causes of evolution like mutation, selection and migration as forces or causes. Stephens claims that a causal process account of drift allows us distinguish it from other forces and this distinction is essential. He further argues that drift has both an orientation, i.e., it tends to eliminate heterozygosity. It also has a size that is determined by population size.

Evolution by Lamarckism

Students of biology in high school are frequently introduced to Jean-Baptiste Lamarck's (1744-1829) work. His theory of evolution is commonly known as "Lamarckism" and it states that simple organisms grow into more complex organisms by the inherited characteristics that are a result of the organism's natural actions usage, use and disuse. Lamarckism is typically illustrated with the image of a giraffe that extends its neck to reach higher up in the trees. This would cause giraffes to give their longer necks to offspring, who then get taller.

Lamarck was a French zoologist and, in his lecture to begin his course on invertebrate zoology at the Museum of Natural History in Paris on 17 May 1802, he presented a groundbreaking concept that radically challenged the previous understanding of organic transformation. According to Lamarck, living things evolved from inanimate matter through a series of gradual steps. Lamarck was not the first to suggest that this could be the case, but the general consensus is that he was the one being the one who gave the subject its first broad and comprehensive treatment.

The dominant story is that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection and Lamarckism were rivals in the 19th Century. Darwinism eventually prevailed and led to the creation of what biologists call the Modern Synthesis. This theory denies acquired characteristics can be passed down through generations and instead argues organisms evolve by the selective action of environment factors, such as Natural Selection.

While Lamarck supported the notion of inheritance through acquired characters and his contemporaries also offered a few words about this idea, it was never a central element in any of their theories about evolution. This is partly because it was never tested scientifically.

It's been over 200 year since Lamarck's birth, and in the age genomics, there is an increasing body of evidence that supports the heritability acquired characteristics. This is referred to as "neo Lamarckism", or more commonly epigenetic inheritance. It is a variant of evolution that is as valid as the more popular neo-Darwinian model.

Evolution through the process of adaptation

One of the most widespread misconceptions about evolution is that it is a result of a kind of struggle for 에볼루션 바카라 survival. This is a false assumption and overlooks other forces that drive evolution. The fight for survival can be more precisely described as a fight to survive in a specific environment, which can be a struggle that involves not only other organisms, but as well the physical environment.

Understanding the concept of adaptation is crucial to understand evolution. Adaptation is any feature that allows a living thing to survive in its environment and reproduce. It could be a physiological structure like feathers or fur or a behavior such as a tendency to move into shade in the heat or leaving at night to avoid cold.

The survival of an organism depends on its ability to draw energy from the environment and interact with other organisms and their physical environments. The organism must possess the right genes to generate offspring, and it must be able to locate enough food and other resources. The organism must be able to reproduce itself at a rate that is optimal for its niche.

These factors, together with gene flow and mutation, lead to an alteration in the percentage of alleles (different forms of a gene) in the population's gene pool. Over time, this change in allele frequency can result in the emergence of new traits and ultimately new species.

A lot of the traits we admire in animals and plants are adaptations, like lungs or gills to extract oxygen from the air, fur or feathers to protect themselves, long legs for running away from predators and camouflage for hiding. However, a proper understanding of adaptation requires attention to the distinction between the physiological and behavioral traits.

Physiological adaptations, such as thick fur or 에볼루션사이트 gills, are physical traits, while behavioral adaptations, like the desire to find friends or to move to shade in hot weather, aren't. It is important to note that insufficient planning does not make an adaptation. In fact, a failure to consider the consequences of a choice can render it unadaptive even though it may appear to be logical or even necessary.