In fact, natural selection often leads to ever greater simplicity. And, in many cases, complexity may initially arise when selection is weak or absent. If you don’t use it, you tend to lose it.

Molecular evolutionary biologist Masatoshi Nei says Darwin never proved natural selection is the driving force of evolution — because it isn't. In a cavernous concert hall, before an eager audience of ...

Usually, when someone starts talking about the interface between evolution and physics, it’s a prelude to a terrible argument that attempts to claim that evolution can’t possibly happen. So, ...

Natural selection is usually understood in the context of change. When organisms deviate from the norm, they may gain advantages that let their lineages outlast those of their less-adaptable relatives ...

Much change is due to random genetic drift rather than positive selection. It could be called the survival of the luckiest. You might think that largely neutral mutations would remain restricted to a ...

Antibiotic resistance, when infection-causing bacteria evolve so they are no longer affected by typical antibiotics, is a global concern. New research at the University of Tokyo has mapped the ...

READER QUESTION: If humans don’t die out in a climate apocalypse or asteroid impact in the next 10,000 years, are we likely to evolve further into a more advanced species than what we are at the ...