One of the strangest aspects of our understanding of evolutionary biology is the tendency to conflate a sprawling protean dynamic into a sliver of a phenomenon. Most prominently, evolution is often reduced to a process driven by natural selection, with an emphasis on the natural. When people think of populations evolving they imagine them being buffeted by inclement weather, meteors, or smooth geological shifts. These are all natural, physical phenomena, and they all apply potential selection pressures. But this is not the same as evolution; it’s just one part. A more subtle aspect of evolution is that much of the selection is due to competition between living organisms, not their relationship to exterior environmental conditions.
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