Thoughts on evolution - Is evolution really random

I have been interested in biological evolution for a long time and I decided to share my thoughts on the subject with you. I have often heard opinions that challenge the phenomenon of evolution, and one of the most common is that new species could not arise through random transformations and mutations. But is evolution completely random? Does every organism have the potential for radical changes? I'll try to answer this question using Archeopteryx, also called the pre-bird, as an example.

Archeopteryx is a dinosaur discovered in 1861. It was an unusual specimen, because it had the features of a reptile, i.e. a skeleton, teeth and a bird, the most important of which were the wings and feathers reflected in the stone. Therefore, it seemed obvious to recognize it as the ancestor of birds and proof that dinosaurs evolved into birds. There were flying reptiles called pterosaurs in the time of the dinosaurs, but they weren't dinosaurs and they didn't have feathers. However, in modern times, science has made great progress, new research methods have been invented and many new species and specimens of extinct animals have been discovered, which has made the history of Archeopteryx much more complicated. It turned out that it was a species that appeared and became extinct very early, many millions of years before the appearance of birds, and was also the so-called. dead end of evolution, that is, it did not evolve further. But then where did the birds come from, since the ancestor-bird was not their ancestor? Well, it was discovered that many species of dinosaurs evolved in a similar way, many of them also had feathers. It follows that dinosaurs had something like the potential to evolve in a certain direction. And this potential is driven by the phenomenon of crossing-over.

This means that genes are interconnected and exchanged not individually, but in bundles consisting of sets of genes. A mutation of one gene in such a package does not necessarily mean a radical change in the structure of, for example, a paw, but it also does not mean that it cannot happen, although the presence of other genes in the package stabilizes these changes. There are other processes and factors that determine evolution, but this crossing-over makes evolution much less random, and the mutated genes stored in packages have the potential to change in a certain direction. This means that evolution is largely genetically determined.

I've also often heard that evolution would have to be like a tornado that would build an airplane, which is practically impossible, but it only looks that way if we assume the total randomness of evolution. However, if we take into account the phenomenon of crossing-over, it turns out that it only takes a tornado to add a few parts for the plane to start working completely differently, which is not so improbable. This does not mean, however, that evolution happens often and easily, because it is estimated that over 99% of species that have ever lived on earth have become extinct.

I am not going to convince you that the phenomenon of evolution is real or not, but I would like to show you that there are many things in the world that are different than they seem at first, and it is worth being open to other points of view, because thanks to this we can develop our personality.

In addition, I would like to show you an illustration of one of my monsters, which is called Archaeoharpy, and it was inspired by Archeopteryx.