natural selection

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English

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English Wikipedia has an article on:
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Etymology

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Coined by British biologist Charles Darwin in 1859 in his work On the Origin of Species.

Pronunciation

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  • Audio (US):(file)

Noun

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natural selection (uncountable)

  1. (evolutionary theory) A process by which heritable traits conferring survival and reproductive advantage to individuals, or related individuals, tend to be passed on to succeeding generations and become more frequent in a population, whereas other less favourable traits tend to become eliminated; the differential survival and reproduction of phenotypes.
    • 2024 July 24, Richard Foster, “Rail reform has never been easy”, in RAIL, number 1014, page 28:
      Yes, there were hundreds of companies in existence, but a form of natural selection was taking place. Weaker companies were swallowed up by larger ones.

Synonyms

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See also

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