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Evolution is everywhere!
Everywhere!
All around you.
It's even happening right here in this very studio, sort of.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Everyone, Laci Green here for DNews
with a special guest, Catie Wayne.
You may recognize Catie from Animalist News
or from her own channels, Boxxybabee and ANewHopeee.
Thanks for joining me on DNews, lady.
Thanks for having me.
Of course.
So Miss Catie Wayne, do you know what the most common argument
I hear against evolutionists?
What?
That there's no proof for it because you can't see it.
But don't they know that it takes hundreds of thousands
of millions of years to happen?
Apparently not.
But you know what's awesome?
Not all examples of evolution happen
outside the course of a human life.
There's some animals evolving right before our very eyes.
Yeah!
Like wild elephants naturally selecting to have no tusks.
It's pretty sad, actually.
In 25 years, the wild elephant population
in both Asia and Africa has been reduced to less than half
because of poachers.
Poachers have become such a serious threat
to their existence that the rate of elephants born without tusks
has shot through the roof.
In some parts of the world, tusk-less elephants only
made up about 5% of the population,
and now it's getting close to a third.
So to be clear, natural selection
is the driving force behind evolution.
You may have heard of the survival of the fittest?
It's a scientific theory that animals
best suited to survive pass their traits on.
So good traits for survival become
more common in a species, while bad traits, in this case
the tusks, become less common.
Their bad traits get them killed or eaten, so they die off,
or perhaps none of the animals want
to mate with them because of those bad genes.
So basically, the tusks are a greater threat
to the elephants' survival than not
being able to dig for food and water.
That's right.
You ready for another depressing example?
No, but yes.
You're ready.
I know you're ready.
Before the Industrial Revolution,
when Britain wasn't polluted, pale moths
were able to rest on the pale growths
on trees, which are called lichen, to hide from the birds
and predators.
Fast forward after the industrial boom,
and suddenly there's a lot more smoke in the air,
killing the lichen growths off and causing the tree
bark to darken.
Then the pale moths became easy targets.
Meanwhile, the dark moths were well hidden,
so they were able to survive and reproduce.
And they eventually became the most common moth color,
while the pale ones were rare.
Boom!
The moths had evolved.
Indeed.
And when Britain started reducing its pollution levels,
the pale moth started to flourish again.
Boom!
Evolving again.
But you know, one of my favorite examples of evolution in action
is actually in humans.
Oh, really?
Humans are losing their pinky toes.
Good, because I really can't think
of a more useless thing on my body.
Well, you know, Laci, they weren't always so useless.
Our whole foot used to look more like monkey feet,
meaning they used to look like hands.
They were prehensile, and we used
to climb trees and stuff with them.
Now that we're bipedal and stopped doing such things,
we don't really need the fifth appendage.
We could easily get by with just four.
We don't even use the pinky toe for balance or anything.
Aren't wisdom teeth kind of the same deal?
Yes.
That's why we get them removed, because they're so stupid
and stuff.
And probably also because our jaws
are getting a little smaller.
Our teeth no longer play a vital role in our survival,
so they're getting selected out.
And because they're so stupid and stuff.
And also that.
Thanks for joining us for DNews, folks.
Be sure to check out Catie on Animalist News
at youtube.com/animalist or at animalist.com We'll catch you
next time.
Byee!
[MUSIC PLAYING]