Biodiversity—the genetic variety of life—is an exuberant product of
the evolutionary past, a vast human-supportive resource (aesthetic,
intellectual, and material) of the present, and a rich legacy to cherish
and preserve for the future. Two urgent challenges, and opportunities,
for 21st-century science are to gain deeper insights into the evolutionary
processes that foster biotic diversity, and to translate that understanding
into workable solutions for the regional and global crises that biodiversity
currently faces. A grasp of evolutionary principles and processes is
important in other societal arenas as well, such as education, medicine,
sociology, and other applied fields including agriculture, pharmacology,
and biotechnology. The ramifications of evolutionary thought also extend
into learned realms traditionally reserved for philosophy and religion.