Humbled by Evolution
By Lee Alan Dugatkin, Carl T. Bergstrom
Understanding the history and diversity of life inspires awe and wonder.
This Article From Issue
March-April 2026
Volume 114, Number 2
Page 80
Geology speaks to vast stretches of time and the very structure of the planet; physics explores even deeper time and broader spatial scales, from tiny quarks to stars, solar systems, and galaxies of unimaginable size and scope. These fields are humbling. But understanding the history, diversity, and connectedness of life, using a device— the human brain—that has been shaped by those very same forces, is outright vertiginous.
QUICK TAKE
- Understanding the process of evolution can be humbling because of its power to explain the history and diversity of life on Earth over the past 3.5 billion years.
- All living things are the result of the same set of simple rules operating over that extended time frame, and all life encodes information the same way, using one ubiquitous genetic code. Even the smallest of changes can produce adaptive benefits, although evolution sometimes produces forms that work just well-enough, affected by locked-in historical legacies.
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