Theories of Evolution MCQ - Practice Questions with Answers

Updated on Sep 18, 2023 18:34 AM

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19 Questions around this concept.

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How many years after the formation of the earth, life appeared on this planet?

50 million years

500 million years

524 billion years

500 billion years

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Concepts Covered - 1

Evolution of Life Forms: A Theory

Organic evolution is a process of cumulative change of living populations and in the descendant population of organisms.
Conventional religious literature tells us about the theory of special creation. This theory has three connotations:
- One, that all living organisms (species or types) that we see, today were created as such.
- Two, that the diversity was always the same since creation and will be the same in future also.
- Three, that earth is about 4000 years old.
All these ideas were strongly challenged during the nineteenth century.
Based on observations made during a sea voyage in a sailing ship called H.M.S. Beagle round the world, Charles Darwin concluded that:
- existing living forms share similarities to varying degrees not only among themselves but also with life forms that existed millions of years ago;
- many such life forms do not exist any more;
- there has been a gradual evolution of life forms;
- any population has built-in variation in characteristics which enable some to survive better in natural conditions (climate, food, physical factors, etc.) would outbreed others that are less-endowed to survive under such natural conditions;
- those who are a better fit in an environment means those who have a better reproductive capacity leave more progeny than others;
- such organisms will survive more and hence are selected by nature, in a process called natural selection.
Alfred Wallace, a naturalist who worked in the Malay Archipelago had also come to similar conclusions around the same time
Hugo de Vries stated that mutations are responsible for evolution.