Your Pokeblog is Evolving!

Let's talk about evolution. (Sorry, creationists, though after my posts about the mosque and gay marriage I'd be REALLY surprised if there were any lurking on this blog.)

I was reading Cowbirds in Love, a hilarious web comic, and one of the comics made a pretty good point: http://cowbirdsinlove.com/860.

Arrogant as we are, humans seem to have this notion that we are the apex of evolution, the pinnacle of natural progress. Some even venture to say things like "We evolved from monkies." This is silly. Monkies have been evolving just as long as we have. They are as much a pinnacle of evolution as we are. We did not "evolve from" monkies. We evolved from a common ancestor that we share with monkies.

Though if one wanted to explore this notion further: Evolution happens because of mutations in new organisms when they are born (well really when they are conceived). This means that, as the movie Mimic pointed out, evolution is about generations, not time. While the ultra-fast evolution in Mimic is still a bit unrealistic, the principle is sound: A species that reproduces faster will evolve faster. So where do we sit on this scale? In theory, we could produce a new generation of humans every 12-15 years if people began producing children as soon as they were biologically able to. People having children so young is an appalling thought now, but was not uncommon back in the days of 30 year life expectancy. If you didn't have kids that early, your kids would probably be orphans before their age hit double digits. Anyway, now a new generation happens every 20 or 30 years.

On the other hand, many other species reproduce far, far faster than us. Many plants have a new generation annually. Some insects can even have several generations per year. Monocellular organisms can even have multiple generations per hour. So, long story short: They're all evolving faster than us. We are technically LESS evolved than house flies. So there.

However, you might say "But I can still hit it with a fly swatter." Or you might not, but then let's assume someone else said it instead. True, evolutionary progress does not necessarily mean "better." It just means those are the attributes that were most advantageous in that situation. As Sanjay points out in the text below his comic: It's all about better fitting your niche. For example, penguins may be pretty damn good at surviving in the cold, but drop them in a desert and they'd fare far worse than "less evolved" desert dwellers from millions of years ago.

Of course, in some cases the niche lies somewhere other than individual strength. You might feel victorious when you crush a cockroach, but remember: for every one you see there are 40 you don't, and they often breed faster than we can kill them. Also remember that though things that will kill a roach (getting stepped on, bug poisons, the cat) might not bother a human, there are plenty of things that will kill a human quickly and painfully that a cockroach can survive.

tl;dr We're arrogant but we're not doing any better than rats.