Evolution

Evolution

How stupid of me not to have thought of that.

Introduction

What is Evolution? Surely everyone has heard the word, and perhaps a lot of other words to describe it, but do you really know what that word means, in the context of biology? Here are a few common notions about evolution. How many do you agree with?

1. Evolution has never been observed directly.
2. Evolution is only a theory, and has not been shown to be a fact.
3. Evolution means that life originated, and living things change, randomly.
4. Evolution is progress; organisms get “better” and more complicated whenever evolution occurs.
5. Evolution means that individual organisms change.
6. In order for evolution to occur, the offspring of some organisms will have to be radically different from the parental organisms.

If you said that all of these statements are false, then you have a good understanding of evolution. They are indeed all untrue. However, this is a list of some fairly common misconceptions about evolution, and many people in the world (and particularly in the USA) share one or more of these misconceptions. It is likely that you think that some or all of these statements are true. One of the hardest parts of learning is to undo a well-established misconception, so if you do think that one (or more) of those statements is true, this chapter might be a bit harder for you. But it will be worth the effort, since, as you will learn below, evolution is the guiding framework for modern biological science. Once you have a good understanding of evolution, and the mechanisms that drive it, you will be well-poised to learn and understand the biology that comes in the rest of this course.

Evolution – what is it?

The biological world is extremely diverse. In fact, that is one of the most powerful realizations that come from the study of biology, or even just from being an observant person in the world. Living things range from the microscopic bacteria to the immense blue whale. They have a diversity of life styles and metabolic capacities, from photosynthetic creatures who can make their own food from carbon dioxide gas, to predatory creatures, all the way to parasitic creatures who have some of the most complicated life styles of all. Within any one of these groups, there is also astounding diversity. Open any field guide, whether for birds, mammals, flowering plants, or mushrooms, and you will be confronted with an abundance of colors, sizes, shapes and behaviors. Even within a single species, say Homo sapiens, there is diversity. Look around your classroom and you will see people with a wide variety of skin colors, hair colors, eye colors, heights and weights. This diversity is a fact, and for many millennia, human beings have been trying to come up with explanations for that well-observed fact.