4 ms·

One of the biggest misconceptions of evolution is that it's a slow and gradual process. Under the right conditions it can happen VERY fast.

akiselev 6y ago
Very fast. The canonical example is the peppered moth (Biston betularia) [1] in the UK changing color from white to black and back to white in the last two hundred years. Coal power plants during the industrial revolution covered the surrounding areas in soot and darkened the white lichen covering those trees, which meant that the white moths were more visible to predators. Once clean air regulations and technological improvements eliminated the soot, the gene that turned them black became a liability and the population was once again taken over by the white moths. The specific mutation event was traced to around 1819 [2] and by the turn of the century, the white variant was all but gone around industrialized cities (someone even wrote Darwin about it in the 1870s). Starting in the 50s and 60s, the distribution began to reverse once the air started to get cleaner and now we're back to a largely white moth population. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/nature17951 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature17951
- tomp 6y ago
  Evolution should be measured in generations, not years. According to Wikipedia, the peppered moth has 1 generation per year; in humans, it's probably like 1 per 20 years. So 50 years moth-time is still 1000 years human-time. Still quite fast though.
JacobAldridge 6y ago
“Punctuated Equilibrium” - long periods of stability, and then short periods of great change. I find it interesting to see the effect in other fields in my life - for example, I’ve been tracking net worth each month for almost a decade, and it follows a similar pattern of slow (or no) growth ... and then big jumps.

akiselev 6y ago

Very fast. The canonical example is the peppered moth (Biston betularia) [1] in the UK changing color from white to black and back to white in the last two hundred years. Coal power plants during the industrial revolution covered the surrounding areas in soot and darkened the white lichen covering those trees, which meant that the white moths were more visible to predators. Once clean air regulations and technological improvements eliminated the soot, the gene that turned them black became a liability and the population was once again taken over by the white moths. The specific mutation event was traced to around 1819 [2] and by the turn of the century, the white variant was all but gone around industrialized cities (someone even wrote Darwin about it in the 1870s). Starting in the 50s and 60s, the distribution began to reverse once the air started to get cleaner and now we're back to a largely white moth population. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/nature17951 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature17951

tomp 6y ago
Evolution should be measured in generations, not years. According to Wikipedia, the peppered moth has 1 generation per year; in humans, it's probably like 1 per 20 years. So 50 years moth-time is still 1000 years human-time. Still quite fast though.

JacobAldridge 6y ago

“Punctuated Equilibrium” - long periods of stability, and then short periods of great change. I find it interesting to see the effect in other fields in my life - for example, I’ve been tracking net worth each month for almost a decade, and it follows a similar pattern of slow (or no) growth ... and then big jumps.