Foods / Tuesday, 09-Sep-2025

Does reverse evolution exist? Tomatoes grown on the Galapagos Islands appear to be de-evolving

Does reverse evolution exist? Tomatoes grown on the Galapagos Islands appear to be de-evolving

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Researchers argue that despite how controversial it might sound, tomatoes in the Galápagos actually seem to be going backwards, not forwards.

De-evolution, or reverse evolution, is a bit of a controversy among evolutionists, and for good reason. Evolution isn’t really meant to have a rewind button. Some organisms might re-acquire old traits that were once lost, but they usually do so through new genetic pathways.

“It’s not something we usually expect,” Adam Jozwiak, a molecular biochemist at UC Riverside and lead author of the study, shared in a statement. “But here it is, happening in real time, on a volcanic island.”

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Instead of creating the alkaloids that the researchers expected to see in a tomato, the de-evolving plants are churning out a version of alkaloids that have the same molecular fingerprint as eggplant relatives from millions of years ago.

“Some people don’t believe in this,” Jozwiak stated. “But the genetic and chemical evidence points to a return to an ancestral state. The mechanism is there. It happened.”

This is an excerpt. Read the original post here

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