Continuing Evolution
- We tend to think of today's range of organisms as the endpoint in the story of evolution
- Or even to think that evolution has stopped or 'peaked' in the modern day
- In fact, there is nothing to suggest that this is the case
- An average human lifetime is 80 years, which is an infinitesimally short time in evolutionary terms
- So very little observable evolution happens in one human lifetime
- Rather, the process is gradual and the changes are almost imperceptible
- Populations of organisms continue to evolve
- All species have evolved and continue to evolve
- All species display evidence of genomic changes over time
- There is evidence of continuous change in the fossil record
- Bacteria show evidence of their evolution of resistance to antibiotics
- Animals and plants display evidence of resistance to pesticides, herbicides or chemotherapy drugs
- Pathogens evolve and cause emergent diseases eg. in the COVID-19 pandemic
