Time, Fourth Principle of Natural Selection
Time is the fourth of the five principles of natural selection introduced by Charles Darwin in The Origin of Species. Darwin viewed long periods as essential for the theory of natural selection to even work, writing –
“I do believe that natural selection will generally act very slowly, only at long intervals of time.”
Estimates of Earth’s “long intervals of time” since the nineteenth century have increased exponentially. At the time, most popular estimates were on the order of several hundred million years.
