Answer the questions, the observe the effects on flower population. This is programmed in a very simple way, but you can even observe things like population booms and genetic drift. Population history and allele frequency will be graphed for you every 50 generations. Flower color represents genetic makeup. Red has AA, white has BB, and pink has a mix. B is the recessive allele, but the flowers have incomplete dominance. Population ceiling - the population of flowers will rarely surpass this number.\. More flowers will die if the population is too big. Disaster: sometimes, a large portion of organisms are destroyed to simulate a natural disaster. Mutation: sometimes, the punnett square formula (below) is overridden and an entirely random offspring is generated instead. Natural Selection: red flowers will reproduce in greater numbers, thus passing A alleles on in greater numbers. (Note that it doesn't always result in a MAJORITY of A because B doesn't die in greater numbers).
If you don't believe in Evolution, I respect your choice, but please also respect mine. NO RELIGIOUS DEBATES. The flower population starts with 8 red and 8 white flowers. The color is represented by allele pairs (AA is red, AB and BA are pink, and BB is white). The program uses punnett squares to generate offspring. Punnett squares work like this: you cross the parents' allele types like (A + A) * (A + B), so when you factor you get AA. AB, AA, and AB as potential offspring. The way the entire simualtion works is that every generation, a random percentage of the population dies and a random percentage of the remaining population "survives and reproduces", passing their genes on. I assure you I only used pure mathematics and probability in this simulation, but you can STILL see how evolution can work.
