CCWilson

Mutations presumably are occurring at around the same rate as in the past. What changes from time to time is the speed with which physical changes occur in a species. In an environment in which survival is difficult, changes occur rapidly in comparison to times in which survival is almost universal. Today in the developed world most people live to an age at which they can reproduce, so there is not a great deal of "natural selection" going on. In fact, the underclass is having more babies than the upperclass, so theoretically the genes more widespread in the underclass will predominate in the future, at least in the developed world. But overall you would expect slow evolutionary species change where most of us live. If you are fascinated by human evolution and want to see rapid changes, you have to go back to hunter-gatherer days, when life was short and not everybody lived long enough to have children. That was where the evolutionary action was! Back then any mutation which added survival skills would rapidly spread. Today that same mutation wouldn't gain a foothold, because those without it would live a normal life span and produce just as many children as those with it.

Darwin knew nothing about the actual method of inheritance. The description of genes and chromosomes and DNA was way into the future, and I believe that he didn't even know about Mendel's theories of inheritance, including dominant and recessive traits. But his insight as to natural selection was perfect, and he was such a thorough and intelligent scientist that he got almost everything right. Truly an amazing, wonderful man. One area that is still in controversy is that he believed in group selection as an explanation for altruism and morality. I happen to believe that he was dead right on this as well, but most evolution scientists disagree.