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Article: Sex, predators and the theory of evolution: observing Darwin's ideas in action. (Charles Darwin) (Horizons)
- Article from:
- U.S. News & World Report
- Article date:
- August 13, 1990
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1990 All rights reserved. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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What shapes a creature's life course and behavior? More than 130 years ago, Charles Darwin laid out his elegant and then shocking theory that it was natural selection, the survival of individuals most suited to the environment, that molded species over evolutionary time. But until very recently, Darwin's ideas remained unproved. Now, for the first time, studies in the wild are rigorously demonstrating the particulars of how evolution works. Last month, David Reznick, an evolutionary ecologist at the University of California at Riverside, published the results of an 11-year experiment involving guppies living in the Aripo River of Trinidad. The experiment proved that ...