Evolution

In one way it's more than a bit late to only talk about evolution when we are 6 and a bit series into Terrible Lizards and this should arguably have been episode 1 in series 1 but here we are. Evolution is the foundation for modern biology and the understanding that species and lineages change over time and also how that happens allows us to interpret those changes patterns. While we barely mention dinosaurs this episode and while we also soon go off the rails and end up talking about some odd bits of evolution and even (shudder) genetics, the core concept of how evolution works is really worth going over as it's the framework for everything else we talk about. Hopefully this one will be illuminating.

Links:

An old post of Dave's trying to get the most comprehensive description of natural selection into the fewest words. It might well be worth reading as a primer for this episode: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2010/06/20/natural-selection-stripped-down/

And a short post about variation: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2012/05/06/variation-and-selection/