The Evidence for Evolution

One of the most intriguing concepts concerning evolution is the ability of species to change and adapt to their environments over time. I know I love my little red poodle, and I also know that he would not exist without evolution or our understanding of it. My little dog is very different than his ancestors, and this demonstrates the idea that novel forms of organisms are derived from earlier forms of that organism, but are distinctly different even though the organisms share a common ancestor. This is also called macroevolution. 

As seen above, the gray wolf is the ancestor and the pug is one of its descendants. We as humans selected for favorable traits (maybe not so favorable in the case of the pug) and bred dogs together until the unfavorable traits were uprooted and only the traits we wanted in the animals were present. Though this was not natural selection, it was still selection on the basis of desirable heritable traits. The people who made this graphic wanted to make it abundantly clear that there was descent with modification in the lineage of the dogs pictured. Though many may not understand, anyone who has a "crusty white dog" in their household has benefitted from the process of macroevolution.

Comments

  1. Jenna ThompsonSeptember 10, 2021 at 5:00 PM

    I love my little lab mix and my french bulldog at home, too! I love that you used dogs as your example, because who doesn't love dogs? It's interesting to me that since this process was not natural selection and was instead the happenings of selective breeding, there are some traits that have come up as less than desirable in a lot of dogs breeds. You gave the example of a pug, and I've got a french bulldog at home so kind of along the same lines-- these dogs were bred to have the short, brachycephalic faces and now a lot of them have tons of breathing problems! This makes me wonder two things: If wolves had been allowed to naturally select, do you think we would have ever gotten dogs like we have today? And if we stopped selectively breeding dogs now, how would the breeds change for better or for worse?

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