Evolution All Around Us
I’ve said before that evolution is happening all around us and it’s ridiculous that the majority of people refuse to see it and acknowledge the role that it has played in creating life on our planet.
You can see it with AIDS in both the evolution of the HIV virus which develops resistance to new drug therapies (just like bacteria which also become antibiotic resistant) and also in the fact that some individuals are genetically resistant to HIV and either don’t get infected or once infected do not get sick.
There are gazillions more examples but I point those out because they are so obvious and often in the news.
Scientists have discovered a very rapid evolutionary change in tropical blue moon butterflies.
| Go to Home - Most Recent PostsScientists say they have seen one of the fastest evolutionary changes ever observed in a species of butterfly.
The tropical blue moon butterfly has developed a way of fighting back against parasitic bacteria.
Six years ago, males accounted for just 1% of the blue moon population on two islands in the South Pacific.
But by last year, the butterflies had evolved a gene to keep the bacteria in check and male numbers were up to about 40% of the population.
Scientists believe the comeback is due to “suppressor” genes that control the Wolbachia bacteria that is passed down from the mother and kills the male embryos before they hatch.
“To my knowledge, this is the fastest evolutionary change that has ever been observed,” said Sylvain Charlat, of University College London, UK, whose study appears in the journal Science.
July 16th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
“I’ve said before that evolution is happening all around us and it’s ridiculous that the majority of people refuse to see it and acknowledge the role that it has played in creating life on our planet.”
I agree!
I wrote not long ago that so many of those whackadoos try to argue that unless a “missing link” is provided, then evolution can’t possibly be true and I pointed out that we have numerous “links” that we can cite. Influenza viruses change every season! And here you’ve cited another.
And we could even say that our parents are the link between our grandparents and us while we are the link between them and our own children.
Further, the entire process is so sublime, rich, and fascinating that it’s actually insulting to me to think that there has to be some sort of design behind it. It’s far more impressive that a pattern was identified by carefully cataloging the facts when there is no design behind it but merely entities acting according to their identities.