If we consider weather we can see the interrelatedness that exists between the elements and the flora and fauna. Apart from being dependent on climatic conditions for their very existence, the flora and fauna are dependent on a variety of climatic conditions to sustain their own great variety. If only one climatic condition existed then the variety of species would be drastically reduced to only those which could survive that environment. We can conclude that the survival of a species, or a variety of that species, is not dependent on genetics alone. It is dependent on environment also. Genetics, through the principle of inheritance, provides a variety of features in a variety of combinations. The environment however decides which variation exists or survives. It was an unfavourable change in environment that caused the mass extinctions of the past.
The ant is one variety of animal and there are a variety of ant species. We can create an environment in which no ant can exist. We can also create an environment in which only one variety of ant species can exist. Furthermore we can create a varied environment in which a variety of ant species can exist.
If we consider but one variety of ant species we can create an environment that will select a particular individual ant. For example, there may be a species of ant that we deem harmful to us for one reason or another. We decide to spray the total population of that ant species with a certain variety of poison. A small number of individuals are unaffected by the poison because of the variety among individuals of a single species. All other individuals perish leaving only that small number to carry on the species and in due time the total population of ants increases and equals its former numbers. This results in a species of ant which overall is unaffected by the poison. It is the same species of ant as before but it now resembles a single individual as a whole with only a relatively small number of individuals being different. It is evident that genetics provides variation through the device of inheritance and that the environment dictates which variety exists or survives.
Environment has a variety of features both climatic and geographic. Food and population density are also a part. Confinement is an environment that changes behavioural features as well as structural features. The locust is a good example. When population numbers are relatively stable it behaves and looks like an inoffensive grasshopper. As numbers increase they experience confinement and in the following generations a locust emerges quite different in behaviour and structure. It would look a different creature altogether. In fact had we not seen this with our own eyes we would claim them to be undoubtedly a different species.
Whatever is found to constitute an influence is environment. Gravity constitutes an influence. It has two features, it makes things rise and it makes things fall. An apple may fall to the ground through Earth's gravity but it was the Sun's gravity that made it rise in the first instance.
The much used phrase, Natural 'Selection', is misleading. We all know what is meant by selection but what precisely is meant by 'natural'. Surely mankind is as much a part of nature as any other living thing and consequently any product of selective breeding must be a natural thing. It should be sufficient to use the word 'selection' only.
