Why does evolution take place? Why couldn’t organisms just stay the same?
Answer
The way you ask your question seems to imply that you regret evolution, change, as it were. Because organisms (life, so) that remain the same, that’s different than you write not ‘normal’, that’s unusual.
Life involves change, evolution; adaptation to changing circumstances. Life that ‘wants’ to survive must change, must adapt. That is precisely what distinguishes living, organic beings from dead, inorganic matter.
There is also no ‘why’. The why question seems to be a question of reason, purpose, motive of biological evolution – and there is no reason, purpose or motive.
As far as causes (or determinants) of biological evolution are concerned, in addition to changing environmental factors, you also have sexual reproduction (crossbreeding, mixing different files of genes) and mutations. These too are largely unfocused, not goal-oriented.
To answer your question very concretely, with the above in mind: biological evolution serves (in the long run) survival.
Sincerely,
Answered by
Prof. dr. dr. Gie van den Berghe
morality, ethics, history of Nazi camps and genocides, eyewitness accounts, the Enlightenment, eugenics, Darwinism, historical photographs, transhumanism
http://www.ugent.be
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