I mentioned “directional selection” in an earlier post and someone asked about it, so I decided to take the opportunity to explain the process of natural selection in a bit more detail.  I think there’s a tendency for people to have a very straightforward, simplified view of natural selection when they think about evolution.  As with everything in biology, the real story is more nuanced and therefore more interesting.  I’ll develop these ideas over a series of posts, starting with the different modes of selection in this post and moving on to different mechanisms in a future post.  Understanding how the different aspects of natural selection interact is an important part of appreciating the complex and dynamic process of evolution, which is at the very core of biology and has generated all of the beautifully fascinating life we see around us.

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