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The Efficacy of Natural Selection as an Evolutionary Agent, with Particular Reference to the Fossil Record

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

F. H. T. Rhodes
F. H. T. Rhodes
Affiliation:
Geology Department, University College, Swansea.
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Abstract

The recent suggestion that natural selection of random mutations is inadequate to account for the major features of evolution is rejected. The pattern of evolutionary development in most major groups, the phenomena of extinction and replacement, the rates of appearance of new major taxa, the continuing vitality of the evolutionary process, the overall randomness of evolutionary history, containing directional change within individual lineages, the nature of natural selection, and the geologic evidence for environmental instability are examined. All suggest that natural selection and random variation are adequate to account for the major features of evolutionary history.

Type
Articles
Information
Geological Magazine , Volume 97 , Issue 3 , June 1960 , pp. 177 - 191
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1960

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References

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