Why does Evolution work so slowly?

Question

Yeah my science teacher says evolution takes long but why?

Answer 1

Evolution is the change of a population that is adapting to its living conditions. It takes so long because favored genes are passed on through many generations. The evolution of a human population takes a LONG time. But for fruit flies, it could take a couple weeks (because fruits flies have a very fast life relative to us. Is based on the conditions and life span of the species you're talking about.

Answer 2

The speed of evolution depends on the circumstances. E.G. lots of tiny changes in a mammalian species take time to happen because of the time a generation takes to turn over and the selection process needs time to happen on those generations.

However you can evolve new bacteria in the lab. Get some bacteria, grow 'em in a few petri dishes, treat them with a weak dose of something they don't like (e.g. antibiotics), enough to kill some but not all. Breed the survivors and repeat. You will have evolved a new resistant strain in a few days. You can pull this trick by artificially selecting for any number of traits. That's called breeding.

Answer 3

a) Evolution occurs at the level of the population. Generations must pass, for changes in allele frequency within the population to become obvious. So, evolution will be limited by the time between generations.
b) Non-silent mutations (and chromosomal events), the means by which new alleles come into existence, are not common events in the germ cell line.

Answer 4

Evolution is a hypothesis that has never been proved.

Science does not claim a 10 billion year history of the world. Such a claim is beyond its scope. It only claims that, if we assume that the present laws of nature were always in force, then the world is that old.

Answer 5

Because it depends on genetic changes that don't hinder the individual and still allow it to successfully breed with others in the population. Those genetic changes are very small. For example, the average height of humans has gone up just a few inches in several thousand years.

Answer 6

Genetic mutations and aberrations only occur every so often. Much of the time when they do occur, they are either repaired back to the original, make no difference, or they harm or even kill the organism. (Eg. Down syndrome.) Mutations that give the organism an advantage, or produce a different phenotype that isn't any better or worse, are fairly rare.

Answer 7

Time is relative. Evolution requires many generations of small variations to have noticable differences. You only live for one generation, so you don't notice the changes, they're slow to you.

Take something that has generations quicker, like bacteria, and you'll see them evolve (like when they develop resistance to antibiotics).

Answer 8

Because animals are usually essentially already adapted to where they live. When changes happen, they rarely happen overnight. When they do, it usually kills all the animals. When you get large numbers of offspring and very short lives, and some sort of severe selection, evolution can happen very quickly.

Answer 9

It's all about stress... The more stress you place on a species..., the faster evolution works... Humans..., relatively no stress surrounding so no great changes for our species...but 300 thousand years ago..., different story..., we were being naturally selected like no one's business...

Answer 10

It depends on the time between generations. In humans, that can be 20-30 years. In bacteria, you can literally "watch" them evolve. Think of the development of resistance to penicillin.