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Humans

Think you understand how evolution works? You're probably wrong

A common misconception is that evolution naturally selects for biological complexity, eventually creating advanced organisms like us. That couldn't be further from the truth

By Graham Lawton

11 December 2019

Bonobo/Pygmy chimpanzee

Avalon/Photoshot License/Alamy Stock Photo

FEW scientific concepts are as misunderstood as evolution. That isn’t just because of cultural resistance from religious fundamentalists. It has acquired all sorts of pseudoscientific baggage too, like the belief that it is about climbing a ladder of ever-increasing biological sophistication.

Evolution can be that, but the reality is usually much less grandiose. “Evolution is changed gene frequencies in populations,” says evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. That is it. If, for some reason, a given gene in a patch of weeds, say, gets slightly more or less common from one generation to the next, evolution has happened.

The gene…

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