Natural Selection

Throughout Darwin’s Origin of Species, he tries out a few different arguments on natural selection. However, I believe his best argument is accumulative selection- man’s power of adding different variations of species together to make them more useful for him. In today’s world, this process is seen a great amount. Whether it is seen with breeder of animals, or a single female finding the best sperm donor, people unconsciously try to breed the best being that they could. Darwin stated, “eminent breeders try by methodical selection, with a distinct object in view, to make a new strain or sub-breed, superior to anything existing in the country. But, for our purpose, a kind of Selection, which may be called Unconscious, and which results from every one trying to possess and breed from the best individual animals, is more important”(84).
When I started thinking about methodical selection, I realized that it is not only seen in animals, but humans as well in the past centuries. For instance, in royalty, royals always bred with other royals. It was frowned upon to marry and reproduce with a lesser “breed.” While searching for a spouse or someone to spend an entire life with, a person does not only look for someone they are compatible with, but someone they can see themselves reproducing with, and making a good offspring. As I mentioned before, when females search for a sperm donor, they are being methodically selective. They check to see who is the smartest, if any diseases run in the family, and how attractive they are- that person is trying to produce the best offspring possible.
Methodical selection is the most logical for out of any of Darwin’s theories. No person or animal wants to produce an offspring that is not going to be beneficial or have a chance of surviving in today’s world. Everyone wants to create the best person/animal possible to contribute.