“We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universes, to be governed by laws, but the smallest insect, we wish to be created at once by special act.”
Charles Darwin
Evolution is a process of transformation of the genetic structures of the organisms. An organism born with a certain genetic disorder could have offspring without the genetic disorder.
Populations
Nearly all organisms live in a form of a population. They form a cooperative community in which the members of the population thrives. When the population is below the carrying capacity of the environment (There are enough resources for most individuals), the organisms will reproduce. When a male and female of reproductive age is present in a similar environment, they will reproduce and the population will increase.
Some time ago…
About 4,5 billion years ago, the Earth was formed. There was no life or any substance that could replicate itself.
The first life on Earth were micro-organisms (A bacteria-like micro-organism). This occurred roughly 3 billion years ago.
Algae appeared after the bacteria-like organisms (they occurred about 1 billion years after the micro-organisms).
The mutation and evolution of the nucleotide sequences in DNA are slow and occur over a long period of time. The differences between organisms that are more closely related seem to have sequences that are similar compared to those that are further apart on the evolutionary timescale.
The processes of nearly all organisms are similar and it is deduced that all the organisms may have originated from a single micro-organism.
Processes which are similar:
- All organisms store fats, carbohydrates and proteins.
- Amino acids are produced in the cells/cell of an organism.
Mutations occur when the nucleotide is altered such as the deletion, replacement or inversion of a nucleotide or a part of it.
“If you go far enough back, your genome connects you with bacteria, butterflies, and barracuda – the great chain of being linked together through DNA.”
Spencer Wells
