Olivia Judson is at it again, using reason and logic to prove random, pointless, mutation-happy evolution.  This time, she’s saying that a species, even when members of that species are isolated from one another, tends to evolve in the same way.  Her essay focuses on micro-evolution, or alterations within a species, which is the kind of evolution that many non-evolutionists believe in (including me).  For example, put a bunch of deer on an island and leave them there for 1,000 years.  They will probably be and look a little (or a lot) different than their deer friends on the mainland.  This is proven and something a lot of us skeptics can believe in.  But what’s interesting about Judson’s essay is that she’s so proud that evolution repeats itself, so proud that evolution seems to have a pattern.  Even though, by definition, it doesn’t.

Looking around the Earth, it’s striking how often similar traits evolve in similar environments. So: birds living on remote islands typically lose the power of flight. Males in species (be they chimpanzees or yellow dung flies) where females are promiscuous tend to evolve high sperm counts and large testes. Animals that live in caves lose their eyes and their color: whether they live in Rwanda or Romania, they’re a pallid, blind lot, the troglodytes. Mammals that specialize on eating leaves – be they cows or langurs (that’s a monkey) – have evolved foreguts where bacteria break down the leaves, as well as special enzymes to help with digestion. Amazingly, the same phenomena are also seen in the hoatzin, a leaf-eating bird from South America. In short, evolution has a remarkable tendency to repeat itself.

Of course, repetition suggests some kind of design.  Which is to say, when members of the same species are isolated from each other, yet micro-evolve (like the deer) in the same way…well, that seems to say that there’s a purpose and a design behind the evolving.  But that won’t stop Judson from contradicting herself.