The Anchors of Evolution
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I hate how evolution has become one of those hot button topics whenever science is brought up to the general populace. All this fuss over the evidence of this theory has led me to believe one thing: people who argue about the validity of evolution don’t understand it. So I have decided before we can talk about all the awesomeness in the field of ecology, the founding stone of evolution must be reviewed.
The basic idea of evolution is that all life is connected and has changed over time. Evolution is possible by four things: variation, inheritance, selection and time. Let’s break these concepts up. Saying all life is connected seems like an old buddhist saying, but there’s a lot of truth to this. All life is made of the same stuff. It is this stuff,genetic material that makes you, well who and what you are. The only way to get genetic material is for it to be passed on from one organism to another via DNA (short for deoxyribonucleic acid), which I like to refer to as life’s barcode. If all life has genetic material, then we can conclude that all life came from the same source; if we go far back enough. This is what scientists mean when they state that life evolved from a common ancestor.
The basic idea of evolution is that all life is connected and has changed over time. Evolution is possible by four things: variation, inheritance, selection and time. Let’s break these concepts up. Saying all life is connected seems like an old buddhist saying, but there’s a lot of truth to this. All life is made of the same stuff. It is this stuff,genetic material that makes you, well who and what you are. The only way to get genetic material is for it to be passed on from one organism to another via DNA (short for deoxyribonucleic acid), which I like to refer to as life’s barcode. If all life has genetic material, then we can conclude that all life came from the same source; if we go far back enough. This is what scientists mean when they state that life evolved from a common ancestor.
It's all in the family
Take you for example. Your genes were given to you by your parents, who each got their genes from each of their parents (your grandparents), who received their genes from their parents (your great grandparents) and so on. If we could go back far enough we would see that you and literally every human being are related. This is simply because the farther back you go, the smaller the population and the closer related everyone is. Now on the flip side if you decide to have children they will receive your genes as well as their other parent’s. This is more commonly referred to as inheritance and not only applies to people, but all life forms as well.
You may be asking at this point “ well if all life is made of the same stuff, why is life so insanely different?” or “Why don’t all humans look alike?” The answer is a fun thing called variation. Let’s go back to you and your family. You may resemble your parents, but you don’t look exactly alike. Likewise, if you have siblings, you may look alike but not the exact same. This is because when two organisms create an offspring (in this case you ) their genes are selected randomly. So the likelihood of having a sibling with 100% the same genetic lineup as you is slim to none.
Alright so all things have genes, and these genes vary from one individual to another. Why is that? Honestly I’m not sure. For now let’s just say life is random and loves variety. This variance gives a sort of insurance to life’s general survival. The environment plays a huge role in what lives where. Sometimes these random variations give an organism a leg up in general survival or an advantage leading to reproductive success in said environments. This process known as natural selection, is a major driver of biological evolution since it influences the gene pool of entire populations of organisms.
You may be asking at this point “ well if all life is made of the same stuff, why is life so insanely different?” or “Why don’t all humans look alike?” The answer is a fun thing called variation. Let’s go back to you and your family. You may resemble your parents, but you don’t look exactly alike. Likewise, if you have siblings, you may look alike but not the exact same. This is because when two organisms create an offspring (in this case you ) their genes are selected randomly. So the likelihood of having a sibling with 100% the same genetic lineup as you is slim to none.
Alright so all things have genes, and these genes vary from one individual to another. Why is that? Honestly I’m not sure. For now let’s just say life is random and loves variety. This variance gives a sort of insurance to life’s general survival. The environment plays a huge role in what lives where. Sometimes these random variations give an organism a leg up in general survival or an advantage leading to reproductive success in said environments. This process known as natural selection, is a major driver of biological evolution since it influences the gene pool of entire populations of organisms.
Time changes us all...
When we combine all three of these elements, biological evolution is bound to occur provide we add one more element: time. Honestly the amount of time for this depends on what you’re looking at. For some, like fruit flies and trees it’s a few generations. But for large-scale changes to happen (like getting a new species) the process takes thousands of generations.
So there you have it, evolution in a nutshell. For those of you who want to know the nuts and bolts of these concepts, I would highly recommend checking out the documentary “Darwin and The Tree of Life”. It’s a wonderfully written film that eloquently covers the evidence and reasoning of evolution (you can watch it here :)). Whew! If you made it this far- congrats and I hope you found this little explanation useful ^^
So there you have it, evolution in a nutshell. For those of you who want to know the nuts and bolts of these concepts, I would highly recommend checking out the documentary “Darwin and The Tree of Life”. It’s a wonderfully written film that eloquently covers the evidence and reasoning of evolution (you can watch it here :)). Whew! If you made it this far- congrats and I hope you found this little explanation useful ^^