How does evolution affect me and my children?

One of the most publicized ways in which evolution touches your life is the increasing problem of bacterial resistance to antibiotics. Over the past eighty years, doctors have been prescribing antibiotics to treat bacterial infection. The net effect of this is that doctors have applied a selective pressure on bacteria to be resistant to antibiotics such as penicillin. Over the hundreds of thousands of generations of bacteria, the individuals that are more able to survive in the presence of antibiotics have reproduced and led to resistant strains. To combat this, medical researchers have had to develop increasingly powerful antibiotics just to keep pace with the rapid evolution of bacteria.

The over-application of antibiotics speeds the pace of bacterial evolution and weakens our societal defenses against infection. A major concern among doctors is that patients frequently demand antibiotics even when they have a viral infection. Why is this a problem? Because antibiotics are only effective against bacteria and certain other single-celled organisms. When antibiotics are over-applied, only the individuals most resistant survive and are left to multiply. This leads to extremely nasty bacteria called “superbugs.” One such superbug is MSRA.

Viruses, which are not cellular, are unharmed by antibiotics. To help your body fight viral infections, an anti-viral medication would be called for.

The use of biocides is another example of how evolution touches our lives. The use of pesticides in agriculture has driven the evolution of resistant insects, requiring the use of harsher chemicals in greater quantity to kill them. The same “arms race” is happening with the use of herbicides on weedy plants.

Evolution is also why you have to get a flu shot every year. Each year, medical researchers have to develop new forms of flu vaccine because the influenza virus evolves so rapidly that the previous year's version is no longer effective.