Pigs might fly... But in the far distant future, pigs do fly! How could this happen?

Additional teacher's notes

In what ways does this simulation model natural selection? In what ways does it differ? What might this simulation tell us that relates to the debate on whether existing organisms evolved from earlier ones or were specially created?

You might choose to prompt a discussion with some of the following ideas.

• The simulation is similar to and models natural selection:
• where it shows that adaptation can arise from cumulative selection of random changes.
• The simulation is not similar to natural selection because it:
• only models lineages with asexual reproduction (e.g. amoeba, bacteria and aphids),
• begins from a 'goal phrase’,
• assumes an unchanging environment in which the conditions for the ‘survival of the fittest’ are fixed.