What is Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection?

Question

What is Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection?

Answer 1

Simply stated, natural selection happens when animals are left alone and the fittest survive and weak die out creating a heartier species

Answer 2

dewcons has a lot of the answer for you - the other part you need to understand is that Darwin based a lot of his thinking on the economic theories of Thomas Malthus- this provided the spark that helped Darwin's light bulb turn on.

Malthus looked at many populations (human and animals) and realized that if every individual born survived, the world would be over-run in a few generations- there simply are not enough resources to go around (for example  1 frog lays thousands of eggs each cycle, yet only a handful actually survive to grow up and reproduce).

Darwin took this idea and ran with it, realizing that something must be involved to help determine which individuals were most likely to survive and reproduce - leading him to the concpet of survival of the fittest or natural selection.  In this concept, those individuals that have some advantage over others in their population are more likely to survive and reproduce youg with those same attributes.

Answer 3

that livng things adapt and stuff (evolution)

Answer 4

it's call survival of the fittest.......the strong survive.......the weak die  of natural selection if you will.

Answer 5

Darwin was looking for a mechanism that would cause or direct evolution.  People have believed in evolution for as long as we have histories of their sciences.  What they could not understand was the force which directed it.

Darwin theorized that every animal had a lot of variety naturally within it.  Such as rabbits could be born with white, brown, gray or black fur.  If those rabbits happened to live in the tundra, where it is "white" most of the time, the white rabbits would have a better change of surviving, while the others would get eaten.  Over time, the number of white rabbits would increase and the other decrease until only white rabbits with white offsprings were left.  The results would be a bred of all white rabbits.  

This is also referred to as "survival of the fittest".  The animal (or variation) best able to survive normally will, and the others will become extinct.