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What is Free Evolution?

Free evolution is the notion that the natural processes that organisms go through can lead to their development over time. This includes the evolution of new species and alteration of the appearance of existing species.

This is evident in many examples, including stickleback fish varieties that can be found in saltwater or fresh water and walking stick insect types that have a preference for particular host plants. These reversible traits however, are not able to be the reason for fundamental changes in body plans.

Evolution through Natural Selection

Scientists have been fascinated by the evolution of all the living creatures that inhabit our planet for centuries. The most widely accepted explanation is Charles Darwin's natural selection, a process that occurs when better-adapted individuals survive and reproduce more successfully than those less well adapted. As  에볼루션 슬롯 Evolution KR , the number of well-adapted individuals grows and eventually develops into an entirely new species.

Natural selection is a process that is cyclical and involves the interaction of three factors that are: reproduction, variation and inheritance. Mutation and sexual reproduction increase genetic diversity in an animal species. Inheritance is the transfer of a person's genetic characteristics to their offspring, which includes both recessive and dominant alleles. Reproduction is the generation of fertile, viable offspring which includes both asexual and sexual methods.

Natural selection is only possible when all the factors are in balance. For instance the case where a dominant allele at one gene can cause an organism to live and reproduce more frequently than the recessive allele, the dominant allele will become more prominent within the population. If the allele confers a negative advantage to survival or reduces the fertility of the population, it will disappear. This process is self-reinforcing, which means that an organism that has an adaptive characteristic will live and reproduce much more than those with a maladaptive feature. The more offspring an organism produces the better its fitness that is determined by its ability to reproduce itself and survive. People with desirable traits, like longer necks in giraffes and bright white patterns of color in male peacocks are more likely to be able to survive and create offspring, so they will become the majority of the population in the future.

Natural selection only affects populations, not individual organisms. This is a major distinction from the Lamarckian theory of evolution which claims that animals acquire characteristics by use or inactivity. For instance, if a Giraffe's neck grows longer due to stretching to reach prey, its offspring will inherit a larger neck. The differences in neck size between generations will continue to grow until the giraffe is unable to breed with other giraffes.

Evolution through Genetic Drift

Genetic drift occurs when alleles of one gene are distributed randomly within a population. At some point, only one of them will be fixed (become widespread enough to not more be eliminated through natural selection), and the rest of the alleles will drop in frequency. This could lead to an allele that is dominant in the extreme. The other alleles are essentially eliminated and heterozygosity has decreased to zero. In a small population this could result in the complete elimination of the recessive allele. This is called a bottleneck effect, and it is typical of the kind of evolutionary process that takes place when a large number of people migrate to form a new population.

A phenotypic  bottleneck may also occur when survivors of a disaster such as an outbreak or mass hunt incident are concentrated in the same area. The survivors will share an dominant allele, and will share the same phenotype. This could be caused by war, an earthquake or even a cholera outbreak. The genetically distinct population, if it is left, could be susceptible to genetic drift.

Walsh Lewens and Ariew employ Lewens, Walsh and Ariew employ a "purely outcome-oriented" definition of drift as any deviation from expected values for variations in fitness. They give a famous example of twins that are genetically identical, share identical phenotypes, and yet one is struck by lightening and dies while the other lives and reproduces.

This kind of drift can be vital to the evolution of a species. But, it's not the only method to progress. Natural selection is the primary alternative, where mutations and migrations maintain the phenotypic diversity in a population.

Stephens claims that there is a significant difference between treating the phenomenon of drift as an agent or cause and treating other causes like migration and selection as causes and forces. He claims that a causal-process model of drift allows us to distinguish it from other forces, and this differentiation is crucial. He also argues that drift has an orientation, i.e., it tends to eliminate heterozygosity. It also has a size, that is determined by population size.

Evolution by Lamarckism

When high school students take biology classes, they are frequently introduced to the work of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744 - 1829). His theory of evolution, commonly referred to as “Lamarckism” is based on the idea that simple organisms develop into more complex organisms through adopting traits that result from an organism's use and disuse. Lamarckism is typically illustrated by the image of a giraffe that extends its neck further to reach the higher branches in the trees. This could result in giraffes passing on their longer necks to their offspring, which then get taller.

Lamarck the French Zoologist from France, presented an innovative idea in his 17 May 1802 opening lecture at the Museum of Natural History of Paris. He challenged the previous thinking on organic transformation. According Lamarck, living organisms evolved from inanimate materials by a series of gradual steps. Lamarck was not the first to propose this however he was widely thought of as the first to give the subject a thorough and general explanation.

The dominant story is that Charles Darwin's theory on evolution by natural selection and Lamarckism fought in the 19th Century. Darwinism eventually prevailed and led to the creation of what biologists today call the Modern Synthesis. The theory argues that traits acquired through evolution can be acquired through inheritance and instead, it argues that organisms develop by the symbiosis of environmental factors, such as natural selection.

While Lamarck endorsed the idea of inheritance through acquired characters and his contemporaries also paid lip-service to this notion but it was not a major feature in any of their evolutionary theorizing. This is partly due to the fact that it was never tested scientifically.

It's been more than 200 years since the birth of Lamarck and in the field of age genomics, there is a growing body of evidence that supports the heritability-acquired characteristics. This is also known as "neo Lamarckism", or more commonly epigenetic inheritance. It is a version of evolution that is as valid as the more popular neo-Darwinian model.

Evolution through the process of adaptation

One of the most common misconceptions about evolution is that it is driven by a sort of struggle to survive. This is a false assumption and overlooks other forces that drive evolution. The struggle for survival is more effectively described as a struggle to survive within a particular environment, which could include not just other organisms, but also the physical environment.

Understanding the concept of adaptation is crucial to comprehend evolution. It refers to a specific characteristic that allows an organism to live and reproduce within its environment. It can be a physiological structure, such as feathers or fur or a behavioral characteristic like moving into shade in hot weather or stepping out at night to avoid cold.

The survival of an organism is dependent on its ability to draw energy from the environment and to interact with other organisms and their physical environments. The organism must have the right genes to create offspring, and it must be able to locate sufficient food and other resources. Moreover, the organism must be capable of reproducing itself at an optimal rate within its niche.

These factors, together with gene flow and mutation, lead to changes in the ratio of alleles (different varieties of a particular gene) in the population's gene pool. This shift in the frequency of alleles can result in the emergence of novel traits and eventually, new species over time.

Many of the characteristics we find appealing in plants and animals are adaptations. For instance the lungs or gills which draw oxygen from air, fur and feathers as insulation long legs to run away from predators and camouflage for hiding. However, a thorough understanding of adaptation requires attention to the distinction between the physiological and behavioral characteristics.

Physical traits such as thick fur and gills are physical characteristics. Behavioral adaptations are not, such as the tendency of animals to seek out companionship or retreat into shade in hot temperatures. It is important to remember that a lack of planning does not make an adaptation. A failure to consider the effects of a behavior even if it appears to be rational, could make it inflexible.