h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've heard about this Yellowstone park volcano but I thought any eruption was centuries away.

I do know both California and Tokyo are well overdue for earthquakes - as is New York!

Another knock on effect that can change social conditions is the collapse of financial institutions because of natural disaster. If Tokyo is wiped out by an earthquake, or New York, then the estimated cost economically would be catastrophic through out the whole world. It would bring down most if not all of the world's banks and financial institutions - or so bankers and financial experts seem to think. That would have an impact on every business and home in the world. Some top financial experts reckon that such a catastrophe would set the world back several hundred years.

All this would have a huge impact on agriculture, governments, medical institutions and how they are run. Plus add any environmental impact that a supervolcano especially would have...

Hmmm, this is getting very doom and gloomy. On the other hand none of the above may happen, or the so-called experts are hopelessly wrong (which won't be the first time).

Isn't it only evolution if the species diverge into two separate ones? otherwise it's just natural selection.

It can be argued that the people who just sign on when they get to 18 and then start knocking out kids are supremely adapted to their environment.

Evolution is the direct result of Natural Selection. Evolution is the improvement of a specied through adaptation to the current environment, and includes speciation - which is, on a most basic level, when a group of organisms is split into two groups, each group encountering different environment and adapting to hose environmental to such a degree that, if their desendants ever encounter each other they will not interbreed.

Usually what happens is the physical form has changed so much they dont recognise each other as potential mates, or the mating rituals/timings are distinct enough that they don't respond to wach other etc etc etc.

Precis of lectures listened to a long long time ago. Never did like evolutionary theory all that much...