this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2026
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Evolution is not an intentional process. It's just statistics compounding over time. Simplified example: By random chance this bird grew a 5% longer beak than its peers, which means it can catch 5% more food and raise 5% more chicks than the others. If its descendants have similar success, over time it means that their long-beak trait will become more and more prevalent in the population, and projected over thousands of years, the whole species will end up having this long-beak trait, simply because those who had it, had more kids grow to reproductive age than those who didn't.
Meanwhile somewhere in the same time, worms that the bird feeds on start to die more because of that beak, except for those that were genetically wired to burrow a bit deeper.