Brian Charlesworth

“The combined effects of mutation, natural selection and the random process of genetic drift cause changes in the composition of a population. Over a sufficiently long period of time, these cumulative effects alter the population’s genetic make-up, and can thus greatly change the species’ characteristics from those of its ancestors.”
― Brian Charlesworth, Evolution: A Very Short Introduction

“Despite the similarities, natural selection differs from human design processes in several ways. One difference is that evolution has no foresight; organisms evolve in response to prevailing environmental conditions at one time, and this may result in features which lead to their extinction when conditions change radically. As we show later in this chapter, sexual competition among males can lead to structures that severely reduce their survival ability; it is quite possible that in some cases an unfavourable environmental change could further reduce survival to such a point that the species could not maintain itself,”
― Brian Charlesworth, Evolution: A Very Short Introduction