What is evolution by natural selection?
Sometimes nicknamed “Survival of the Fittest,” it would be more appropriate to call it “Reproduction by the Fittest.” Simply put, since more detail will appear later, in any given group of organisms, there will be some features that directly affect how good a chance each individual has of living to reproductive age and then successfully reproducing – who manages to live long enough to make little ones? As a general trend, each generation of offspring will, more and more, reflect those features the parents had that are advantageous to their environment, which helped their forebears survive. The important detail here is that environments change over time – what was a good feature in one environment may not be so good elsewhere or elsewhen – and these changes in environment (the “Nature” part of Natural Selection) influence (the “Selection” part) which individuals live long enough to reproduce and what features preferentially wind up in the offspring. Over time, depending on an organism’s
