Evolution = baby-making contestIf you read my previous entry on what evolution is not, you might be wondering just what it is. After all, it's not like high school Science classes are always worth a damn. Let me distill it for you as simply as I can: Evolution is a baby-making contest. That's it. Whoever makes the most wins.
That's really evolution in a nutshell. Let's say you're male. If you impregnate one woman per day in your hometown for as long as you're fertile, eventually you'll start to see that everyone in town looks a little like you. They're carrying part of your DNA with them. Now, let's say you also happen to have an inheritable genetic quirk - six fingers on your right hand. All those kids you produce will have six fingers on their right hand. They'll go on to produce other children, and their children will produce other children, etc, etc. In a few generations, your hometown will have "six fingers on the right hand" as the norm.
That's all there is to it, really. It's not about survival of the "strongest." In practice, it tends to be about survival of the "fittest." But "fittest" doesn't mean most athletic or anything like that. It means who can carry on their genes the most. Being fit for your environment really helps, since you can produce more offspring the longer you live. Maybe having 11 fingers really turns women on and that's why you've been so successful in finding mates. Or maybe it has nothing to do with your mating habits. Maybe you're a rapist. Maybe you're incredibly wealthy. Maybe maybe maybe blah blah blah - the point is, something about you enabled you to boink lots of women. Lots more than your competitors. Thus, your genes get carried forward more often than theirs do. Good genes, bad ones, neutral ones - they all go into your offspring and get spread around. Several generations down the line, whatever made you special now makes everyone normal. This is especially true if 11 fingers really is an advantage somehow. Then your offspring will have the same advantages you had in finding a mate and the quirk will be spread all over the place until it becomes the norm everywhere.
The next time someone tells you they don't believe in evolution, see if they look like their dad. If they look more like the mailman, there's a clue.
Labels: evolution
2 Comments:
small flaw in your explanation, Sac: every 5 generations or so, most of the family's dominant traits get lost in the genetic mixture -unless, of course, the family's all about incest.
evolution's about mutations, mainly. but I kinda enjoyed your explanation as well.
8:59 AM
In this hypothetical case, you impregnated everyone in town so it is indeed about incest :-)
9:03 AM
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