Question

Which of the following is not an inference on which natural selection is based?

• A. Less adapted individuals never produce offspring
• B. The variations are heritable among individuals
• C. Species tend to produce more offspring than the environment can support
• D. Well-adapted individuals leave more offspring than poorly adapted individuals

Answer 1

The correct option is A Less adapted individuals never produce offspring

Darwin was influenced by the work of T.R. Malthus, who postulated that food production increased in arithmetic progression while population growth in geometric progression. This led to the scarcity of resources and ultimately to the struggle for existence. The few who overcame this resource crunch could do so because they had better survival characteristics in the face of adverse conditions, and genetically passed on these characteristics to their progenies. Genetically superior progenies led to more progenies who inherited the same characteristics, eventually eliminating the progenies with weaker characteristics in the long run. The summation of these circles of reproduction is called the reproductive loop which totally wiped out less adapted individuals whose offspring had fewer chances to survive and reproduce.

Thus, it is not that less adapted individuals never reproduce, but they reproduce lesser than better adapted individuals and gradually their numbers decrease in the population and slowly becomes extinct.