Final answer:
Evolutionary processes, particularly natural selection, have played an essential role in shaping human characteristics over time, including physical, behavioral, and physiological traits. This ongoing process occurs over generations, resulting in the biodiversity we see among humans today.
Step-by-step explanation:
Evolutionary processes are critically important in understanding how and why humans have developed over time. The concept of natural selection, as a key mechanism within these processes, posits that certain characteristics become more common in a population because they contribute to an individual's survival and reproductive success. Over many generations, this leads to changes in the population's characteristics, thereby shaping human development.
It's essential to recognize that individual humans do not evolve within their own lifetimes; rather, evolution takes place over long periods and across many generations within populations. The diverse traits and abilities that we observe in humans today are the cumulative result of this ongoing evolutionary process, driven by natural selection as well as other factors such as mutation, genetic drift, and gene flow.
The answer to how evolutionary processes have applied to human development is (b) Evolution played a role in shaping human characteristics over time. This includes not just physical attributes, but also behavioral and physiological adaptations that have allowed humans to thrive in a wide range of environments.