The fitness of an individual is measured by how well its offspring reproduce - i.e. how many offspring that survive and reproduce does an individual produce ?

Charles Darwin studdied and closly watched peppered moths (Biston Betularia) in their natural habbitat. The peppered moths are light colored with darker areas of color. Like humans, however, these moths can be found in a range of pigmentation from very black to very white and all shades in between.He watched durring the Industrial Revolution in the middle of the 18th century. Soot from the factories was starting to discolor the trees making the moths visable to passing predators.

The different colored moths all belong to the same species; they reproduce with each other, and the color difference depends primarily on alternate alleles for a single gene. The black moths were presumably produced by mutation: biochemical change in DNA that makes up the genes for a trap. Under the Hardy-Weinberg Principle it is stated that the frequencecy of dominat and resessive alleles is the same from generation to generation. This was not he case.

Peppered moths rest during the day on tree trunks

I read the conclusion and recapitulation in the book, this was chapter 14. Here is a breif recap of it. As natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endowment will tend to progress toward perfection. This was the main idea in the book. Darwin felt that only the strongest organism and the one that was best adapted to it's surrounding would survive, he called this idea survival of the fittest. Darwin's principles that of survival of the fittest and natural selection pertain to developmental psychology. The processes of natural selection works equally over all parts and forms of function. If something is functional if it is adaptive, mental activity and behavior have function too.

When England passed it's clean air acts in the 1960's the soot was not coating the trees anymore because polution was minimized. This put the dark colored moths at a disadvantage. Now the birds could see the dark moths on the light trees. Slowly the majority of moths became light colored again.

Also tektites and stishovites, rocks that are made from great heat and pressure, have been found to be around 65 million years old. They are most likely caused by a cosmic collision. Louis Alvarez came up with the theory of a Nuclear Winter causing the demise of the dinosaur. When the asteroid crashed into the earth a huge amount of dust was thrown into the

Since the DNA code is basacilly the same in all organisms this suggests that all of a species can be traced back to a common ancester. With evolution this suggests that all DNA stays primarily but slight changes may cause changes in apperance such as with the moths changing shades. Evolution uses genetic engeneering techniques.

Darwin realized that developmental tradition have current forms had several previous forms and will have future forms. Behavior has form. Patterns of behavior in all species tend to follow an orderly genetic sequence in their beginings.

Some common words found in the essay are:
Lyell Haeckel, Hardy-Weinberg Principle, London Darwin, Lamarck's Law, Academy Sciences, Nuclear Winter, Indidustrial Revolution, Industrial Revolution, Amiens Lamarck, England British, natural selection, tree trunks, black moths, light colored, charles darwin, colored moths, theories evolution, eaten birds, moths light, peppered moths, trunks black moths, moths light colored, charles darwin born, gray tree trunks, polar bears white,
Approximate Word count = 2415
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)