126 Evolution and the Fossil Record
drug we throw at them. When sulfonamides were introduced in the 1930s, resistant strains
evolved in only a decade. Penicillin was introduced in 1943, and there were resistant strains
by 1946. For this reason, doctors are now much more cautious about issuing antibiotics to
sick patients who want the drugs even though they are useless against the viruses that cause
cold and flu. Similarly, the heavy use of antiseptic cleansers and wipes has led to strains of
bacteria that can resist most antiseptics. Many medical researchers think that our excessive
cleanliness in the Western world is to our disadvantage because young people are no longer
exposed to many different kinds of germs, and they become vulnerable when a strong strain
(that doesn’t infect people in the “dirty” Third World) invades. Now hospitals are worried—
when one of these drug-resistant strains appears in a hospital, it can quickly spread to many
patients and nothing can stop it.
Likewise, many insects and weeds have evolved resistance to pesticides and herbicides,
all within a few decades, causing enormous economic damage to people all over the world.
Every modern housefly now carries the genes that make it resistant not only to DDT, but also
to pyrethroids, dieldrin, organophosphates, and carbamates, so there are few pesticides left
that can suppress them. The mosquitoes that evolved resistance to DDT and other organo-
phosphate insecticides apparently evolved in Africa during the 1960s, spread on to Asia,
then reached California by 1984, Italy in 1985, and France in 1986. As entomologist Martin
Taylor describes it (in Weiner 1994:255),
It always seems amazing to me that evolutionists pay so little attention to this kind of
thing, and that cotton growers are having to deal with these pests in the very states
whose legislatures are so hostile to the theory of evolution. Because it is the evolution
itself they are struggling against in their fields every season. These people are trying
to ban the teaching of evolution while their own cotton crops are failing because of
evolution. How can you be a creationist farmer any more?Evolution is happening all around us. It happens every time a new germ invades your body,
a new pest or weed destroys our crops, or a new insecticide-resistant fly or mosquito bites
you. Creationists may get some personal comfort from their beliefs, but they cannot change
the fact that life is evolving all around us and threatens our survival if we don’t come to
terms with that evolution (see fig. 1.3).
For Further Reading
Campbell, J. 1982. Autonomy in evolution, in Perspectives on Evolution, ed. R. Milkman. Sunderland,
Mass.: Sinauer, 190–200.
Carroll, S. 2005. Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo/Devo. New York: Norton.
Desmond, A., and J. Moore. 1991. Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist. New York: Warner.
Eldredge, N. 1985. Unfinished Synthesis. New York: Oxford University Press.
Gould, S. J. 1977. Ontogeny and Phylogeny. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Gould, S. J. 1980. Is a new and more general theory of evolution emerging? Paleobiology 6:119–130.
Gould, S. J. 1982. Darwinism and the expansion of evolutionary theory. Science 216:380–387.
Gould, S. J. 2002. The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Levinton, J. 2001. Genetics, Paleontology, and Macroevolution. 2nd ed. New York: Cambridge University
Press.