Myths and misconceptions about evolution. Let's talk about evolution.

You've probably
heard that some people consider it controversial, even though most scientists don't. But even if
you aren't one of those people and you think you have a pretty good understanding of evolution,
chances are you still believe some things about it that aren't entirely right, things like, "Evolution
is organisms adapting to their environment." This was an earlier, now discredited, theory of
evolution. Almost 60 years before Darwin published his book, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck proposed
that creatures evolve by developing certain traits over their lifetimes and then passing those on
to their offspring. For example, he thought that because giraffes spent their lives stretching to
reach leaves on higher branches, their children would be born with longer necks. But we know
now that's not how genetic inheritance works. In fact, individual organisms don't evolve at all.
Instead, random genetic mutations cause some giraffes to be born with longer necks, and that
gives them a better chance to survive than the ones who weren't so lucky, which brings us to
"survival of the fittest". This makes it sound like evolution always favors the biggest, strongest,
or fastest creatures, which is not really the case. For one thing, evolutionary fitness is just a
matter of how well-suited they are to their current environment. If all the tall trees suddenly died
out and only short grass was left, all those long-necked giraffes would be at a disadvantage.
Secondly, survival is not how evolution occurs, reproduction is. And the world if full of creatures
like the male anglerfish, which is so small and ill-suited for survival at birth that it has to quickly
find a mate before it dies. But at least we can say that if an organism dies without reproducing,
it's evolutionarily useless, right? Wrong! Remember, natural selection happens not at the
organism level, but at the genetic level, and the same gene that exists in one organism will also
exist in its relatives. So, a gene that makes an animal altruistically sacrifice itself to help the
survival and future reproduction of its siblings or cousins, can become more widespread than
one that is solely concerned with self-preservation. Anything that lets more copies of the gene
pass on to the next generation will serve its purpose, except evolutionary purpose. One of the
most difficult things to keep in mind about evolution is that when we say things like, "Genes
want to make more copies of themselves," or even, "natural selection," we're actually using
metaphors. A gene doesn't want anything, and there's no outside mechanism that selects which
genes are best to preserve. All that happens is that random genetic mutations cause the
organisms carrying them to behave or develop in different ways. Some of those ways result in
more copies of the mutated gene being passed on, and so forth. Nor is there any predetermined
plan progressing towards an ideal form. It's not ideal for the human eye to have a blind spot
where the optic nerve exits the retina, but that's how it developed, starting from a simple
photoreceptor cell. In retrospect, it would have been much more advantageous for humans to
crave nutrients and vitamins rather than just calories. But over the millenia, during which our
ancestors evolved, calories were scarce, and there was nothing to anticipate that this would
later change so quickly. So, evolution proceeds blindly, step by step by step, creating all of the
diversity we see in the natural world.
If we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?
Well, because we're not monkeys, we're fish.
Now, knowing you're a fish and not a monkey is actually really important to understanding
where we came from. I teach one of the largest evolutionary biology classes in the US, and
when my students finally understand why I call them fish all the time, then I know I'm getting my
job done. But I always have to start my classes by dispelling some hardwired myths, because
without really knowing it, many of us were taught evolution wrong.
For instance, we're taught to say "the theory of evolution." There are actually many theories,
and just like the process itself, the ones that best fit the data are the ones that survive to this
day. The one we know best is Darwinian natural selection. That's the process by which
organisms that best fit an environment survive and get to reproduce, while those that are less fit
slowly die off. And that's it. Evolution is as simple as that, and it's a fact.
Evolution is a fact as much as the "theory of gravity." You can prove it just as easily. You just
need to look at your bellybutton that you share with other placental mammals, or your backbone
that you share with other vertebrates, or your DNA that you share with all other life on earth.
Those traits didn't pop up in humans. They were passed down from different ancestors to all
their descendants, not just us.
But that's not really how we learn biology early on, is it? We learn plants and bacteria are
primitive things, and fish give rise to amphibians followed by reptiles and mammals, and then
you get you, this perfectly evolved creature at the end of the line. But life doesn't evolve in a
line, and it doesn't end with us. But we're always shown evolution portrayed something like this,
a monkey and a chimpanzee, some extinct humans, all on a forward and steady march to
becoming us. But they don't become us any more than we would become them. We're also not
the goal of evolution.
But why does it matter? Why do we need to understand evolution the right way? Well,
misunderstanding evolution has led to many problems, but you can't ask that age-old question,
"Where are we from?" without understanding evolution the right way. Misunderstanding it has
led to many convoluted and corrupted views of how we should treat other life on earth, and how
we should treat each other in terms of race and gender. So let's go back four billion years. This
is the single-celled organism we all came from. At first, it gave rise to other single-celled life, but
these are still evolving to this day, and some would say the Archaea and Bacteria that make up
most of this group is the most successful on the planet. They are certainly going to be here well
after us. About three billion years ago, multicellularity evolved. This includes your fungi and your
plants and your animals. The first animals to develop a backbone were fishes. So technically, all
vertebrates are fishes, so technically, you and I are fish. So don't say I didn't warn you. One fish
lineage came onto land and gave rise to, among other things, the mammals and reptiles. Some
reptiles become birds, some mammals become primates, some primates become monkeys with
tails, and others become the great apes, including a variety of human species. So you see, we
didn't evolve from monkeys, but we do share a common ancestor with them. All the while, life
around us kept evolving: more bacteria, more fungi, lots of fish, fish, fish. If you couldn't tell --
yes, they're my favorite group. As life evolves, it also goes extinct. Most species just last for a
few million years. So you see, most life on earth that we see around us today are about the
same age as our species. So it's hubris, it's self-centered to think, "Oh, plants and bacteria are
primitive, and we've been here for an evolutionary minute, so we're somehow special." Think of
life as being this book, an unfinished book for sure. We're just seeing the last few pages of each
chapter. If you look out on the eight million species that we share this planet with, think of them
all being four billion years of evolution. They're all the product of that. Think of us all as young
leaves on this ancient and gigantic tree of life, all of us connected by invisible branches not just
to each other, but to our extinct relatives and our evolutionary ancestors. As a biologist, I'm still
trying to learn, with others, how everyone's related to each other, who is related to whom.
Perhaps it's better still to think of us as a little fish out of water. Yes, one that learned to walk
and talk, but one that still has a lot of learning to do about who we are and where we came from.