Why Do Species Go Extinct? Causes, Numbers, and the Rate We Are Running Now

Plant tissue culture in test tubes

Something like 99.9% of every species that has ever lived is gone. Extinction is not the exception in the history of life — it is the norm, and the average species lasts somewhere between one and ten million years before it disappears. So the interesting question is not whether species die out, but why do … Read more

What Is Natural Selection? Four Conditions and a Lot of Misunderstandings

Green spiky virus particles

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria did not appear because bacteria needed to resist antibiotics. Resistant variants already existed by chance; the drug killed everything else and left them to multiply. That is the whole mechanism in one example. So what is natural selection, precisely? It is a filter, not a force — and once you see it that … Read more