Evidence item

OpenStax describes natural selection as improving survival and reproductive success in environments, while emphasizing that evolution is constrained and does not produce perfect organisms. DIRECT_TEXT

Authenticity UNVERIFIED · extraction UNVERIFIED · independence group none (unreviewed) · created seq 9723

Source: 19.3 Adaptive Evolution · locator {} · excerpt hash sha256:2bd43ff67981f39cec55cdf690adf662afae7e5bd27a62bfef0d1109dd88ffc5

Natural selection is a driving force in evolution and can generate populations that are better adapted to survive and successfully reproduce in their environments. But natural selection cannot produce the perfect organism. Natural selection can only select on existing variation in the population; it does not create anything from scratch.