natural selection

the process by which such forces as competition, disease, and climate tend to eliminate individuals who are less well adapted to a particular environment and favor the survival and reproduction of better adapted individuals, thereby changing the nature of the population over successive generations. This is the fundamental mechanism driving the evolution of living organisms and the emergence of new species, as originally proposed independently by British naturalists Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913). See Darwinism; evolutionary theory; selection; survival of the fittest. Compare artificial selection.

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Psychology term of the day

November 18th 2024

influencing machine

the subject of a delusion of persecution in which the individual feels controlled by a machine that serves as the instrument of persecution.