TiS: This specification claims to discuss "how the diversity of life has arisen through natural selection and evolution" but it does not discuss evidence which would show that this has actually happened. It presents examples of micro-evolution (see below) and simply makes the assumption, without citing convincing evidence, that this is how all the diversity of life has arisen.

TiS: Few would dispute that natural selection can alter allele frequencies over time and adapt organisms to particular environments. The controversy is over whether this mechanism can generate new levels of complexity and explain the origin of all living things.

TiS: Whilst in the Malay Archipelago, Alfred Wallace (1823–1913) independently developed a theory of evolution very similar to Darwin's. He wrote this up in a paper called On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely From the Original Type, and in 1858 he sent a copy to Darwin. Darwin was then persuaded to rapidly publish over 20 years worth of his own research in 'The Origin of Species'.

Lamarck's concept of 'evolution' was by inheritance of acquired characteristics. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, many biologists believed that acquired characters could be inherited. Darwin and Wallace's theory of natural selection did not lead to the idea being immediately abandoned.

Malthus was a clergyman who argued that populations tend to grow more rapidly than food supplies. Hence, there will always be a competition for resources and a struggle for survival in which all but the fittest are eliminated. Darwin recalled that the idea of natural selection came to him from reading an essay by Malthus entitled 'On the Principle of Population'.