How Genes Work With Evolution
Lizard Darwinian Explanation
Past
A: At first there was an equal amount of red and white
Population
lizards in the A. population. Then the lake near their home
dried up leaving white gypsum as the environment. B. The
Selective advantage
white ones blended in with the gypsum and the red ones
could be seen and were eaten. The white lizards now
Survival
C. survived better than the red lizards. Since there were
Reproduction
more white ones alive, they C. reproduced more and
Heredity
D. passed on the gene for white to their kids more than the
Now-variation changed
In population
red lizards passed on their red genes. E. Now, there are
more white lizards than red ones in the population.
Graph Creatures Darwinian Explanation
At the beginning there was a population of graph creatures
that had variation in the numbers of things sticking out.
Those graph creatures that had the most things sticking out
could climb trees better to get food and get away from
predators. Those that had fewer things sticking out could
not climb trees as well and they didn’t get much food and
were more easily caught by predators. More of the graph
creatures with many things sticking out survived and since
they were alive, they reproduced. They then passed on
their genes for greater number of things sticking out. Now
there is a population of graph creatures with more things
sticking out than there was before, but there is still
variation in the number of things sticking out.