List three reasons that evolution leads to adaptation not pe

List three reasons that \"evolution leads to adaptation, not perfection\", ie factors that prevent natural selection from removing variation from populations and resulting in uniformly perfectly adapted species?

Solution

Evolution:

Definition: evolution can be defined as a process in which the organism develop itself over the earlier forms.

There are several misconceptions regarding evolution. One among the many is that the evolution helps an organisms grow better progressively leading to a perfect organism which is not so.

The fact is that evolution do not result in a perfect organism but it results in an organism which can be adapted to the conditions for better survival.

Reasons

If the evolution creates perfect individuals there is no room for natural selection because there will be an equal competitive strength among organisms which may result in ecological imbalance.

Evolution need not create perfect organisms because nature do not select perfect organisms but it selects the organisms that fit in the nature or well adapted organisms.

Mutation, migration and genetic drift may cause population to result in a way that is actually harmful overall or make them less suitable for the environment. Example is high frequency of Huntington\'s disease in Afrikaner population of South Africa.

Climate change, rivers become dry or shift, new competitors invade and organisms with traits that are beneficial in one situation may not be beneficial in other. So we cannot measure perfection in such cases.

Conclusion: for simple understanding, evolution cannot be viewed as a ladder which takes to higher perfection progressively with Homo sapiens at the top but can be viewed as a tree with each species representing a twig.