It's reassuring to think humans are evolution's ultimate destination – but research shows we may be an accident

By Matthew Wills, Professor of Evolutionary Palaeobiology at the Milner Centre for Evolution, University of Bath
Marcello Ruta, Senior Lecturer, Life Sciences, University of Lincoln

Depending upon how you do the counting, there are around 9 million species on Earth, from the simplest single-celled organisms to humans.

It’s reassuring to imagine that complex bodies and brains like ours are the inevitable consequence of evolution, as if evolution had a goal. Unfortunately for human egos, a recent study…

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