Evolution: A Very Short Introduction

Natural selection is often used to solve difficult design problems for complex systems.

In this process, the engineer does not have a design in mind, but only the desired function.

In designing machines and software, sometimes a very efficient way to find the optimal design is to successively make small, random changes to the design, keeping the versions that do the job well, and discarding others.

And that’s how Natural Selection works in nature as well.

It is a blind process with no foresight.

Natural selection is the most important concept (alongside mutation, and genetic drift) that explains the evolution and ultimately the origins of species.

Certain heritable variations of a gene may be preferentially passed on to future generations.

To put it in simple words (which will lose some of its accuracy of course), those who have certain gene variations that help them or their social group to survive or reproduce more are more likely to pass on their genes to future generations.

It’s always fascinating to read about evolutionary biology and the origins of species.

You will look at the world around you quite differently after a lecture on why we have so much diversity of life.

It took me ~13 hours to read and it was fun!

Happy reading! 📙