• Question: What is so important about the theory of evolution ?

    Asked by 425evnb33 to Adam, Thomas, Thad on 18 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Thomas Clements

      Thomas Clements answered on 18 Mar 2015:

      Great question!!!

      Evolution is important for two main reasons:

      1. Evolution effects your day to day life! Remember how you got a cold last year? Well chances are you’ve had a cold like it before, but this time the germ has mutated just slightly – it had evolved! This means your immune system has to work out all over again how to beat it! If we understand evolution patterns then we can come up with better medicines and cures against disease-causing organisms.

      2. It is important to understand how life started and where it’s going. The planet is always changing. It has been much much hotter and much much colder in the geological past. How did life cope with this? If we can understand this then we can look at how life will cope from human induced global warming and other event that threaten the planet.

      I hope this helps – leave a comment if you want to know more!

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 19 Mar 2015:

      It’s also really interesting because evolution is the reason there are so many different and exciting plants and animals on earth – without evolution we’d all still be little single-celled organisms – if we existed at all!

    • Photo: Thaddeus Aid

      Thaddeus Aid answered on 19 Mar 2015:

      Hi,

      Evolution is important for a number of reasons.

      The first is that it explains all diversity in life. Without the theory of evolution we wouldn’t understand why a dolphin is different to a whale, but understanding evolution tells us why they are different.

      Secondly, it tells us what happened in the past. My own work looks at the history of humans and how we have evolved to adapt to our environment. I am looking at the ways that we have survived up until now.

      Third, by studying evolution we can make better medicines. Diseases are often the result of evolution be it a virus or a genetic disease. But understanding how these diseases evolve we can combat them and help keep more people healthy.

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