STRANGE THEORY OF STRANGE DARWIN: Something’s Off with Evolution

Illustration from Thomas Huxley’s Evidence as to Man’s Place in Nature, 1863 / sciencehistory.org

Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution stands among the greatest discoveries in human history. And yet, what exactly the great scientist uncovered remains somewhat unclear. Researchers keep identifying flaws in his concept of natural selection. For example, bright sexual traits do not actually increase an animal’s chances of finding a mate, as Darwin believed. Natural selection has little to do with eliminating competitors. Rather, it tends to promote cooperation as a means of survival. But these are not the only oddities that recent studies have uncovered in the theory of evolution…

THE STRANGENESS BEGAN FROM THE VERY START

From the very beginning, humanity’s relationship with the theory of evolution has been rather strange… Perhaps because its creator was himself a rather strange man. Charles Darwin’s parents were physicians, and he was expected to follow in their footsteps. But Darwin dropped out of the University of Edinburgh after just two years.

He had to abandon medicine because he couldn’t stand the sight of blood. What he truly loved from a young age were exotic animals — though in a rather unusual way. While in Edinburgh, he eagerly practiced taxidermy on them, learning the craft from a freed Black slave. Later, he even began tasting the «exotic» creatures.

As head of Cambridge’s «Glutton Club», Darwin enjoyed sampling owl stew or indulging in hawk ragout. Fortunately for science, Charles’s interest in animals did not end there. In the 1830s, he set out on a voyage aboard the HMS Beagle, summarizing his observations of the animal world in On the Origin of Species.

A CRUSADE AGAINST EVOLUTION

Any eccentricity — including the theory of evolution — might have been forgiven the scientist, were it not for one thing. The religious mind could still tolerate the idea of animal evolution. The notion of natural selection, favoring the survival and reproduction of those individuals best adapted to their environment, seemed odd but more or less acceptable. But denying God’s role in the creation of humans and claiming that we descended from apes? For believers of the time, no idea could have been more blasphemous.

The creationists’ crusade against Darwin is far from over. Until 1968, teaching «Darwinism» in schools was banned in many U.S. states, a ban only lifted when it was declared unconstitutional. Despite nearly two centuries of scientific evidence, not everyone is ready to accept the «blasphemous» truth of Darwin’s theory.

In 2014, Pope Francis was even compelled to make a special statement affirming that evolution in no way contradicts the concept of creation. But even the Pope’s authority did little to change minds. Darwin’s theory continues to spark debates — not only among the Church and the faithful, but also among scientists who keep challenging, reinterpreting, and refining it in various ways.

NOT RANDOM AND PREDICTABLE

One of the most widely publicized recent «revisions» to the theory came from renowned historian Yuval Noah Harari, who shifted the focus from human biological evolution to mental evolution. But in 2022, his Israeli colleagues went even further. After studying the genetic mechanisms behind human adaptation to malaria, they presented evidence suggesting that changes in human genes do not occur randomly, as Darwin had claimed.

In other words, environmental factors are not the sole source of mutations in the genome. Much faster and more accurate changes are triggered by information already contained within us. British scientists from the University of Nottingham also disagree with the idea that evolution is an unpredictable process.

Using a machine learning technique called «random forest», they analyzed 2,500 genomes of the same bacterial species. It turned out that the evolutionary trajectory of a genome is indeed not random — it is shaped by its evolutionary past.

The discovery of the predictability of evolutionary processes is hard to overestimate. By precisely targeting genes, scientists hope in the future to tackle many currently incurable diseases, antibiotic resistance, and even climate challenges.

EVOLUTION? NO IMAGINATION AT ALL!

But evolution is non-random in yet another sense — it turns out to be not particularly inventive and tends to recycle its favorite «tricks». At one time, the famous paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould claimed that if we could «rewind the tape of life», evolution would follow a completely different, unpredictable path. In that case, Homo sapiens likely wouldn’t appear «at the end».

However, evolutionary biologists from France’s National Centre for Scientific Research, after studying the evolution of stick insects in 10 different regions over 30 years, began to suspect that Gould was wrong: evolution tends to repeat itself — and in a fairly predictable way. Further observations of crabs and sticklebacks revealed that the evolution of the same traits often follows a recurring, though complex, pattern.

Evolution, it turns out, is more of a conservative than a wild dreamer: it tends to develop the same traits in organisms again and again.

THE EVOLUTION OF EVOLUTION

The most unexpected discovery in the field of evolution came at the end of 2024. American biologists from the University of Michigan suggested that not only living organisms evolve — but that the very process of evolution evolves as well. Over time, it develops increasingly efficient and refined «settings».

Using a special computer program, the scientists simulated virtual organisms that could rely on one of two survival strategies. The strategies were mutually exclusive, so the organisms couldn’t use both at once.

The researchers repeatedly changed environmental parameters in their virtual worlds, and with each cycle, the digital life forms adapted more quickly and effectively to new conditions. However, this «evolution of evolution» occurred only if changes weren’t too abrupt — unfolding not over one or two, but over several dozen or even hundreds of generations.

DOES THE THEORY EVOLVE TOO?

When the number of beneficial mutations reaches a certain threshold, the survival of a population is no longer under threat. This happens for two reasons. First, there is a greater diversity of individuals capable of surviving and thriving. Second, organisms become better adapted to conditions their ancestors have already encountered.

As we can see, Darwin’s theory of evolution is not a fixed scientific dogma. In fact, it seems the theory itself is evolving — creatively adapting to new scientific discoveries in accordance with its own principles. And with each new breakthrough, it becomes increasingly strange.

Perhaps only someone as peculiar as Darwin could have discovered it. Having abandoned a career in medicine, he famously went on to study theology at Cambridge. And what came of that, as you now know, is history…

Original research: