One prominent misconception about evolution, thanks to its active promotion by anti-evolutionists, is that evolutionists believe things evolve by chance. It's then easy to point out how unlikely it is that their straw man could have occurred by chance. Just one problem. The beauty of natural selection is that it can account for adaptation without having to abandon the laws of the physical universe.
Although chance plays some role in the kinds of mutations available for
natural selection to work on, there is a powerful, nonrandom natural force at work;
namely, the interaction between genetics and the environment. The environment is the
selecting agent, and it works merely by determining who, on average, survives to
produce the next generation and who does not. Those individuals with a genetic makeup
that allows them to thrive in a given environment have a greater chance of passing on
their genetic material to the next generation; however, the favored genetic state for
one environment may be disfavored in another. Thus, as environments change, populations
continually adjust to the new conditions; evolution in action.
Contributor: Arthur H. Harris, Laboratory for Environmental Biology, Centennial Museum, University of Texas at El Paso.
Desert Diary is a joint production of the Centennial Museum and KTEP National Public Radio at the University of Texas at El Paso.