• Question: What's your favourite scientific theory?

    Asked by gray520more on 24 Mar 2025.
    • Photo: Michelle Hawkins

      Michelle Hawkins answered on 24 Mar 2025:

      Evolution by natural selection: it explains so much of biology and there are examples of its power from viruses to ecosystems.

Comments

  • Photo: Sam R

    Sam R commented on :

    Sorry to be boring, but it HAS to be the theory of evolution. Once I learned this, I couldn’t help but begin to look at the natural world in a completely different way.

    It is such a simple, beautiful theory that its a wonder how it took so long for someone to piece together.

    Then we have something called ‘convergent evolution’, which is that animals in similar habitats and environments look similar despite not sharing any evolutionary history. It shows so clearly how an environment shapes a creature. It explains why fish and dolphins both have fins, despite not being related at all (dolphins are mammals like dogs!). Aardvarks and Anteaters are both huge mammals with long claws, long noses, and long tongues for eating ants and termites – but Aardvarks live in Africa and Anteaters live in South America!