a natural process of evolution that tends to result in the survival of organisms best adapted to their environment and the elimination of organisms carrying undesirable traits that have resulted from genetic mutation: compare selection, struggle for existence
Natural selection is the theory of the driving force of evolution, proposed by Charles Darwin (1809–82) and, independently, by Alfred Wallace (1823–1913). It uniquely accounts for adaptation: the illusion that living organisms are well designed. Genetic variation in a population is randomly generated by mutation and sexual recombination, and nonrandomly sampled by natural selection. The fittest survive, and future generations inherit what qualified them to do so — Professor Richard Dawkins