Evolving Ourselves

Excel Venture Management co-founders Juan Enriquez and Steve Gullans detail, how, for millennia, people reshaped the natural environment and forced animals, plants, microbes – and humanity itself – to adapt. Enriquez and Gullans explain how scientists might apply emerging techniques to cure genetic diseases, breed designer pets, reverse the ravages of aging, and perhaps give birth to new species of humans.

Darwinian Evolution

For billions of years, life on Earth evolved in accord with the principles Charles Darwin uncovered in the 19th century. According to Darwin, two forces determined which organisms would survive and what traits they would have. The first is “natural selection”: the species that survive adapted best to their environment. The second is “random mutation,” which guides how organisms change over time. New traits appear spontaneously in individuals over generations. If a new trait confers a survival advantage, the individual with that trait will likely live long enough to reproduce and pass that trait on to its descendants.