Coronavirus variant is evolution in action

Goodness gracious, folks, what’s going on here? It seems like we finally get a vaccine that defeats the coronavirus, when a variant pops up that foils our efforts and we’re faced with an altered form that’s more virulent and more efficient at putting us in our graves.

What’s the deal? Well, you evolution doubters, what you’re seeing is evolution pure and simple. Survival of the fittest, capiche? We create a remedy that thwarts the virus, but it has produced so many that, sooner or later, one mutates and becomes a version that can survive, replicate, and continue to plague us in a new form.

You’re seeing evolution happen right before your eyes. The same thing happened to Homo sapiens (us) over a span of millions of years. Ancestors of apes experienced mutations that enabled certain of them to survive, replicate and become a more advanced form of ape. Then, their survivors experienced further mutations that made them even fitter, and those survivors prevailed, ad infinitum, finally resulting in us, today’s Homo sapiens.

There were no invisible, supernatural deities involved here; no clumps of mud, no ribs; merely abundant time and a multitude of opportunities for various mutations to prevail. To survive, Covid mutates (evolves) and continues on its way. The same thing happened to our ancestors: evolution, continual evolution. It hasn’t stopped; some mutations benefit us (opposable thumb), some are detrimental (hemophilia), but it’s been a constant element of earth’s phenomenon of life for millions of years.

— Michael Herman, Chico