Zmienność jako podstawowe prawo przyrody
Variability as the basic law of nature

Summary/Abstract: Biological evolution is the change over time in one or more inherited traits found in populationsof organisms. Two processes are generally distinguished as common causes of evolution.One is natural selection, a process in which there is differential survival and reproductionof organisms that differ in one or more inherited traits. Another cause is genetic drift,a process in which there are random changes to the proportions of two or more inheritedtraits within a population. An individual organism’s phenotype results from both its genotypeand the influence from the environment it has lived in. A substantial part of the variation inphenotypes in a population is caused by the differences between their genotypes. Variationdisappears when a new allele reaches the point of fixation – when it either disappears fromthe population or replaces the ancestral allele entirely. Speciation stretches back over 3.5billion years, during which life has existed on earth. It is thought to have occurred in multipleways, such as slowly, steadily and gradually over time, or rapidly from one long static state toanother. Evolution has led to the diversification of all living organisms, which are describedby Charles Darwin as “endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful”.

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