Natural Selection (Evolution)

by David Turell , Friday, August 05, 2011, 03:00 (4858 days ago) @ whateverist

While the article is interesting and news to me, I don't see why it should alter the way we define natural selection. Natural selection as I understand it is merely a way to describe the way an organism or its mutation acquires domain over an environment by virtue of being better suited to exploit it. ("Domain over" grates a little but the gist squares with what I mean.) I've always assumed that genetic mutation -whether of the parts or their connections- is random. So organisms to don't craft adaptions in their genomes, they just vary a bit and the best version may gain a reproductive advantage.-Your assumptions are not currently correct. The past ten years have opened up an enormous amount of information on how organisms under environmental pressures alter their own genetics, a field called epigenetics. But your view of natural selection is correct in that the best suited organisms survive.