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BUTWhat about geological and weather changes? Vegetation and animals would have evolved too, right?
Every animal and plant alive today either:
a- has evolved
b- has maintained in a niche where none of the mutations that have happened to idividuals or groups have been of benefit, and therefore were not necessarily carried on to succeeding generations.
MANY, MANY species have gone extinct. Far more species have gone extinct than are in existance today. This is largly because evolution does NOT happen in response to an external stimuli. You can not CAUSE evolution merely by changing the environment. Species go extince largly becasue the environment changes and durring the critical time period in which they must adjust, no beneficial mutations happen to occur, and the species dies.
IF a mutation HAPPENS to occur during this time period or "window," and it is beneficial and gets passed along, the species will survive and adapt. But the adaptation was not caused by the environmental change. It merely happened in coincidence and factors happened to be right for it to be of benefit.
This is a very important concept in understand evolution and how and why things evolve.
In light of bigger brains/eyes, surely more intelligence is a benefit. BUT, in our society, the most intelligent people often have the fewest kids, thus curbing one of the major factors that contribute to evolution: a passing on of the mutation to large numbers of offspring.