Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution

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Context

• India have signed an open letter to NCERT condemning the removal of Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution from the science textbooks for Classes 9 and 10.

About the Theory of Evolution

• The Theory of Evolution by natural selection was first formulated in Charles Darwin's book "On the Origin of Species published in 1859.
• In his book, Darwin describes how organisms evolve over generations through the inheritance of physical or behavioral traits.
• The theory starts with the premise that within a population, there is variation in traits, such as beak shape in one of the Galapagos finches Darwin studied.
• According to the theory, individuals with traits that enable them to adapt to their environments will help them survive and have more offspring, which will inherit those traits.
• Individuals with less adaptive traits will less frequently survive to pass them on.
• Over time, the traits that enable species to survive and reproduce will become more frequent in the population and the population will change, or evolve.
• Through natural selection, Darwin suggested, genetically diverse species could arise from a common ancestor.
  • A species is a population of organisms that interbreeds and has fertile offspring.
  • Living organisms have descended with modifications from species that lived before them.
  • Natural selection explains how this evolution has happened:
  • More organisms are produced than can survive because of limited resources.
  • Organisms struggle for the necessities of life; there is competition for resources.
  • Individuals within a population vary in their traits; some of these traits are heritable -- passed on to offspring.
  • Some variants are better adapted to survive and reproduce under local conditions than others.
  • Better-adapted individuals (the "fit enough") are more likely to survive and reproduce, thereby passing on copies of their genes to the next generation.
  • Species whose individuals are best adapted survive; others become extinct.

https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/news/story/ncert-removes-darwins-evolution-theory-from-science-textbook-open-letter-2363682-2023-04-23