Evolution of Mickey Mouse

Mickey Mouse has evolved. This was noticed and brough to the world by Stephen J. Gould in his book, "The Panda's Thumb", deserving a whole chapter.
As you can see, in this case, Mickey Mouse is not portraited as an individual, but as a population, or species of consecutive Mickeys. The Mickeys started to suffer small changes and, since they were successful (the character became more dear to the public) they kept those traits, by a special kind of natural selection.

And what traits are those that make Mickey each time more a favourite of people? The traits of a child! The chubby, big eyed, big headed, rounder mouse has been becoming everytime more like the being we instinctively tend to love and protect: our kids.

Do individuals genetically adapt to their environments?

Hello,
today I'm going to talk about another evolution myth: many people actually believe that the evolution theory deffends that individuals can freely adapt to the environment, surviving.

This is nothing but an incorrect interpretation of the theory. This idea is really a misconception, and reffers to LaMark's way in trying to explain evolution, way befforre Darwin's publication of his Origin of the Species.

Natural Selection

Hello there, today I'm bringing you a small cartoon by a very smart guy. This cartoon belongs to a series called "The Far Side" and was drawn by Gary Larson. 

As you should know, darwinian natural selection deffends the survival of the fittest, being overcentered in the inter-species competition, but, nowadays, neo-darwinian natural selection is all about the best traits (the best alleles in each gene) and the way they are passed down to the descendants, centered in the intra-species competition.

In this case, darwinians would deffend that the carnivores were stronger, and that led to the end of the unicorns, but, in other and, neo-darwinians would say that the unicorns did not posses the traits to survive the stress caused by the carnivores. 

We can also look at this cartoon and notice a problem that has been present in all the planet for some centuries. The problem is the way species interact with each other and, what could happen if we change some individuals from habitat. But I'll leave that for another day.