An introduction to evolution
The definition
Biological evolution is descent with modification. This definition encompasses small-scale evolution
(changes in gene frequency in a population from one generation to the next) and large-scale evolution
(the descent of different species from a common ancestor over many generations). Evolution helps us
to understand the history of life.
The explanation
Biological evolution is not simply a matter of change over time. Lots of things change over time: trees
lose their leaves, mountain ranges rise and erode, but they aren't examples of biological evolution
because they don't involve descent through genetic inheritance.
The central idea of biological evolution is that all life on Earth shares a common ancestor, just as you
and your cousins share a common grandmother.
Through the process of descent with modification, the common ancestor of life on Earth gave rise to
the fantastic diversity that we see documented in the fossil record and around us today. Evolution
means that we're all distant cousins: humans and oak trees, hummingbirds and whales.
The central ideas of evolution are that life has a history — it has changed over time — and that
different species share common ancestors.
The family tree
The process of evolution produces a pattern of relationships between species. As lineages evolve and
split and modifications are inherited, their evolutionary paths diverge. This produces a branching
pattern of evolutionary relationships.
By studying inherited species' characteristics and other historical evidence, we can reconstruct
evolutionary relationships and represent them on a "family tree," called a phylogeny.
The three domains
All of life is related and can be divided into three major clades, often referred to as the three domains:
Archaea, Bacteria, and Eukaryota.
The trees are supported by many lines of evidence, but are probably not always flawless. Scientists constantly
reevaluate hypotheses and compare them to new evidence. As scientists gather even more data, they may
revise these particular hypotheses, rearranging some of the branches on the tree. For example, evidence
discovered in the last 50 years suggests that birds are dinosaurs, which required adjustment to several
"vertebrate twigs."
Understanding a phylogeny is a lot like reading a family tree. The root of the tree represents the
ancestral lineage, and the tips of the branches represent the descendents of that ancestor. As you
move from the root to the tips, you are moving forward in time.
When a lineage splits (speciation), it is represented as branching on a phylogeny. When a speciation
event occurs, a single ancestral lineage gives rise to two or more daughter lineages.
Phylogenies trace patterns of shared ancestry between lineages. Each lineage has a part of its history
that is unique to it alone and parts that are shared with other lineages.
Similarly, each lineage has ancestors that are unique to that lineage and ancestors that are shared
with other lineages — common ancestors.
Trees, not ladders
Several times in the past, biologists have committed themselves to the erroneous idea that life can be
organized on a ladder of lower to higher organisms. Similarly, it's easy to misinterpret phylogenies as
implying that some organisms are more "advanced" than others; however, phylogenies don't imply this
at all.
In this highly simplified phylogeny, a speciation event occurred resulting
in two lineages. One led to the mosses of today; the other led to the fern,
pine, and rose. Since that speciation event, both lineages have had an
equal amount of time to evolve. So, although mosses branch off early on
the tree of life and share many features with the ancestor of all land
plants, living moss species are not ancestral to other land plants. Nor
are they more primitive. Mosses are the cousins of other land plants.
Misconceptions about humans
The points described above cause the most problems when it comes to human evolution. The
phylogeny of living species most closely related to us looks like this:
It is important to remember that:
- Humans did not evolve from chimpanzees. Humans and chimpanzees are evolutionary cousins and
share a recent common ancestor that was neither chimpanzee nor human.
- Humans are not "higher" or "more evolved" than other living lineages. Since our lineages split,
humans and chimpanzees have each evolved traits unique to their own lineages.
Source: [Link]