The Relevance of Evolution: Introduction

Solving biological problems
Biological systems evolve, which means that variables always change and history always matters. That’s part of the definition of evolution: change over time through descent with modification. If we don’t take evolution into account, our solutions to biological problems are likely to fail.

In this section, we will explore case studies that show how understanding evolution can become critical when we have a biological problem to solve.

Understanding evolution helps solve biological problems that impact our lives—for example, vaccinations for disease prevention and methods to combat insect pests for crop management.

Understanding how diseases evolve helps us administer vaccines most effectively.

Understanding the evolution of insects helps us devise more effective methods of pest control.