Art of Appreciation | Overview of Evolution | Devonte McLean |

Why are we here? How are we here? What can account for the broad diversity of life we see around us every day? These are the questions people have been asking for thousands of years. It has been recently that science was sophisticated enough for us to be able to find the real answer. Anyone can tell you that the currently accepted explanation is the Theory of Evolution. In the early 19th century, the Theory of Evolution was being formed in the minds of many scientists but it was first given voice by Charles Darwin in his Origin of Species. He proposed that a process called natural selection acts on random variation within a species to cause only the most fit of that species to survive and leave fertile offspring. Natural Selection is a process that chooses specific individuals based on their characteristics, by allowing them to survive and multiply, less suited individuals die out. Over time, only a certain amount of organisms most suited to their environment survive, and organisms become more and more specialized. Darwin's theory was failing at the time of its broadcast as being an excellent explanation for the diversity of living things on our planet. Generally, the only opposition to the Theory of Evolution came from religious circles who believed that the world was created in six days and all the animals and plants were created exactly as we see them. While many scientists in the public stuck to their beliefs, this theory did not have much support from the scientific world. After all there was very little evidence for such a creation, and there was enough evidence for the evolution. However, in more recent times other challenges to the Theory of Evolution have surfaced. During Darwin's life, there was a great deal that science did not know, could not know about the inner workings and