• Question: If evolusion is happening all the time , do you know what we are actually evolving into ??

    Asked by zoesmells to Hywel, Joseph, Patience, Poonam, Rachael on 24 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Joseph Cook

      Joseph Cook answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Evolution takes millions of years. It’s possible to see animals or people adapting to their surroundings, but the evolutionary genetic changes are almost always too slow for us to see.

      There are a couple of examples where evolution can be seen over shorter time scales, like the peppered moth – I suggest you look it up if you’re interested.

    • Photo: Poonam Kaushik

      Poonam Kaushik answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Evolution is a continuos process u can’t observe it that whether it is happening or not. Lets take an example :
      Suppose there were exactly two frogs near a river which happened to b a seasonal river. Now bcoz of rain two frogs r seperated one on each side of bank. as they r seperated they start living on each side of bank and mate with the ones which were present on each side produced progenies. after 7-8 generations on each side of bank species will b different! u wont b able to c evouution but a new species has evolved which is bit different in genetic material from original! c

      Cu isnt’it

    • Photo: Dr Hywel Jones

      Dr Hywel Jones answered on 24 Jun 2010:

      Evolution is a very slow process and it is hard for us to try and see it in action. Even with short lived creatures such as fruit flies it takes a lot of careful work by scientists over many years to try and understand how (and if) their genes are responding to their environment.
      We can make some educated guesses about what might happen based on some basic understanding of our bodies and the environment in which we live but life is very complicated and many predictions in the past have not yet been seen to come true (such as super large brains and very little legs because we sit at a computer all day).

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