CHARLES DARWIN THEORY OF EVOLUTION AND MORDERN GENETIC ENGINEERING

Abstract

Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins(Hall, B. K et al,2008).Organisms could evolve from one form to another as a result of changes in environment and genetic information which results in variations. As variations and adaptive changes continue over a long period of time, these give rise to diversity of form, structure and function in organisms. This is organic evolution(Mayr E. 1982). The theories of evolution attempt a biological explanation of the diversity of form, structure and function among organisms. Charles Darwin (1859) an English naturalist proposed the theory of evolution.(Goldschmidt,1940). He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection. He published his theory with compelling evidence for evolution in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species. This theory had limitations which was the underlying mechanism for hereditary. This limitation is further compounded in modern genetic engineering which involves the direct modification of nucleic acid material of an organism.