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Explain why the discovery of genes was powerful support for Darwin's theory of natural selection.

User JMF
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Answer:

It is supported by evidence from a wide range of scientific disciplines, including genetics, which shows that DNA from different species is similar. There is also evidence in paleontology and geology to support the Theory of Evolution.

Step-by-step explanation:

The theory of evolution is a shortened form of the term “theory of evolution by natural selection,” which was proposed by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in the nineteenth century. Anaximander of Miletus, a Greek philosopher who lived in the 500s B.C.E., proposed theories to explain how organisms change or evolve over time. Anaximander speculated that because human babies are born helpless, humans must have descended from another type of creature whose young could survive without assistance. He deduced that those ancestors had to be fish, because fish hatch from eggs and begin living without assistance from their parents. Based on this logic, he proposed that all life began in the sea.

Evolution is the process of change that occurs over generations in all forms of life, and evolutionary biology is the study of how evolution occurs. Biological populations evolve as a result of genetic changes that correspond to changes in the observable traits of the organisms. Mutations are genetic changes caused by DNA damage or replication errors in organisms. Natural selection gradually causes traits to become more or less common as a population's genetic variation drifts randomly over generations based on the relative reproductive success of organisms with those traits.

The modern understanding of evolution began with Charles Darwin's 1859 publication of On the Origin of Species. Furthermore, Gregor Mendel's work with plants aided in the explanation of genetic hereditary patterns. Fossil discoveries in palaeontology, advances in population genetics, and a global network of scientific research have all contributed to a better understanding of evolution's mechanisms.

Scientists now have a good understanding of how new species form (speciation) and have observed the process in the lab and in the wild. Evolution is the primary scientific theory used by biologists to understand life, and it is used in a variety of disciplines, including medicine, psychology, conservation biology, anthropology, forensics, agriculture, and other social-cultural applications.

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