Word.ws English Dictionary

unnatural selection

unnatural selection noun: the selection of certain genes caused by the actions of humans, especially the intentional intervention in the breeding of plants or animals in order to preserve selected genetic traits; eugenics, selective breeding or culling.

Noun

unnatural selection (uncountable)

  1. (derogatory, humorous, rare, sometimes, evolutionary theory) The selection of certain genes caused by the actions of humans, especially the intentional intervention in the breeding of plants or animals in order to preserve selected genetic traits; eugenics, selective breeding or culling.
    • Is the startling variety of dogs, brassicas and the like, which our unnatural selection has generated, a sort of compensation, I wonder?2000, John Postgate, Microbes and Man, →ISBN, page 335
    • Rachel demonstrates that America's racism and its tolerance of lynching (not public health measures, as white supremacist and elitist eugenicists from Spencer to Wiggam had argued) have resulted in unnatural selection for both blacks and whites.2005, Daylanne K. English, Unnatural Selections: Eugenics in American Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance, →ISBN

Examples of unnatural selection in a sentence

  • Unnatural selection generally acts at cross purposes to the long-term goal of sustainable harvest of wild populations and can reduce the frequency of phenotypes valued by humans.2009, Francisco J. Ayala, John C. Avise, In the Light of Evolution: Volume III: Two Centuries of Darwin, →ISBN:
  • There has often been talk of eugenics, of breeding humans in such a way as to improve their gene pool—a kind of unnatural selection or self-domestication.2012, John Tyler Bonner, The Ideas of Biology, →ISBN:

Synonyms of unnatural selection

Origin of unnatural selection

Play on natural selection.

Questions about unnatural selection

What does unnatural selection mean?
Unnatural selection means the selection of certain genes caused by the actions of humans, especially the intentional intervention in the breeding of plants or animals in order to preserve selected genetic traits; eugenics, selective breeding or culling.
How do you use unnatural selection in a sentence?
Unnatural selection generally acts at cross purposes to the long-term goal of sustainable harvest of wild populations and can reduce the frequency of phenotypes valued by humans.
What part of speech is unnatural selection?
Unnatural selection is a noun.

Words near unnatural selection in the dictionary

  1. unnationalistic
  2. unnationality
  3. unnationalized
  4. unnative
  5. unnatural
  6. unnatural selection
  7. unnaturalise
  8. unnaturalised
  9. unnaturalises
  10. unnaturalising
  11. unnaturalism

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: unnatural selection (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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