Thread: How Evolution Happens

Originally Posted by Alextanium

I maintain that the only people who don't accept evolution for what it is just don't comprehend how powerful a mechanism it is for driving the complexity of life. It's power and elegance is embedded in its simplicity - small changes over colossal periods of time result in observable changes.

I would LOVE to evolve through my sleep, but I'm not waking up with the ability to fly every other day, nor shoot red beams of energy out of my eyes. My genetics won't change just because I "want them to".

I couldn't agree more with you. Many people think they've understood the theory of evolution, because essentially it's pretty simple, but somehow they don't seem to understand it's consequences. And most people forget one important factor in evolution: not mutation or selection, but chance. i.e. an earthquake or a volcanic eruption don't ask about adaptation, they simply kill everything within their reach. And the individuals that survive, mostly by pure chance, will form the new population, in which the genes can be distributed totally different compared to the original population. And those genes will be passed on to the next generation.