How quickly can you evolve?
When Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” was published, evolution was already a well-established idea. Darwin’s insight was that evolution—through the process of natural selection—led to the introduction and extinction of entire species. This of course upset the established church, and to this day there are still religious groups who reject the idea, in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence.
The early twentieth century saw the rise of “neo-Darwinism”, which finally provided a mechanism for natural selection. It wasn’t happening at the level of creatures but at the microscopic level of genes. Natural selection is simply the playing out of a long-running stastistical game based on shuffling genes, and more disturbingly the creatures themselves (and ourselves) are just a very sophisticated form of temporary accomodation for those genes!