#13

Darwin’s best argument for natural selection is the fact that there is not enough room for everybody. The planet has limited resources: space, food, elements needed for survival, etc. Darwin brought up a good point—that if every species gave off 2 offspring, and there was no selection, there would be millions, billions of members of the species on the planet within the century. There is no limit to how many members of a species can be produced. Obviously, there is only a limited amount of organisms on the planet so there has to be some methodology of choosing some offspring to live and others to die. Darwin must, first and foremost state that there are variations within a species. He states that this has never been disputed. Any observer can see that some dogs are big and others are small, that some are white and others are brown and others are black. If there is a limited amount of space for everybody, and there are small differences among everyone, perhaps there is a variation that is better than the others. This is where competition comes in, and ultimately Natural Selection. The best way to describe this phenomenon is by using a musical chair analogy. In this common child’s game, there is a limited resource---the chairs. There are more children than chairs. If every kid’s aim is to have a chair to sit on when the music stops, there is going to be some competition. The children will fight for his or her chair. So, according to Darwin, the members of a species will likewise be in a constant battle for survival. Nature by itself has a means of selecting who lives and who dies. Competition can further be exemplified by the musical chair analogy. Assuming that the children playing the game have variations, something that is bound to be true, there are going to be some children better skilled for the game. These ones are going to be swifter at grabbing chairs than the others. In conclusion, I will state that there would be now such selection with the musical chairs if there were more chairs than kids. So, the point that there is only so much space is crucial for natural selection to work.