Q. 12. Only variations that confer an advantage to an individual organism will survive in a population. Do you agree with this statement? Why or why not?
It is not always true. The variations that confer an advantage to an individual organism are definitely of more survival value because natural selection prefers these variations. But there are several other variations which, though do not provide an advantage to the organism in if present condition, survive and are inherited by the next generations. Such non-advantageous variations may become advantageous in future when the environmental conditions change.
For example, at this stage of evolution, The art, and music skills that we acquire don't give us any survival benefit but are still called a good quality trait or variation.