Theories
Natural Selection
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Natural selection is the process by which organisms with traits better suited to their environment tend to survive and reproduce more successfully than others. It is the central mechanism Charles Darwin proposed to explain how species change over time.
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Proposed YearDarwin first presented the idea jointly with Alfred Russel Wallace in 1858, then set it out fully in this book the following year. Cross-Tradition Connections
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Precursor To
Darwin's own natural selection assumed blending inheritance, which the rediscovery of Gregor Mendel's particulate genetics around 1900 seemed to contradict, opening a period historians call the eclipse of Darwinism. Population geneticists including Ronald Fisher and Theodosius Dobzhansky resolved the apparent conflict from the 1930s into the 1940s by showing Mendelian inheritance actually supplies the discrete, heritable variation natural selection acts on, combining the two into the Modern Synthesis.
Proposed By
Wallace independently arrived at natural selection while in the Malay Archipelago; his 1858 manuscript to Darwin prompted their joint Linnean Society presentation on 1 July 1858, before Darwin's own 1859 On the Origin of Species.
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