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

January 19th 2025

holistic healing

a health care concept based on the premise that body, mind, and spirit function as a harmonious unit and that an adverse effect on one also adversely affects the others, requiring treatment of the whole to restore the harmonious balance.