Bacteria have a simpler body plan when compared with human beings. Does it mean that human beings are more evolved than bacteria? Provide a suitable explanation.

Human beings are more evolved than bacteria cannot be just answered on the basis of their complexity, i.e., it’s not necessary that a complex organism is always more evolved.


If the appearance of complexity is concurrent with evolution, then human beings are certainly more evolved than bacteria. But if we take the totality of life characteristics into account, then it is hard to label either of the organisms as evolved.


Some similarities between humans and bacteria are:


a. Both bacteria and human beings are still evolving from 6 billion years.


b. Bacteria spend their time in evolving characteristics that made them adaptable in almost any environmental conditions.


c. Both are well adapted to ecological niches they exist in.


d. Both of them now co-exist.


Dinosaurs were much more complex organisms which got disappear followed by the appearance of birds on earth (an organism with less complex body structure as compared to dinosaurs). Although bacteria are simpler organisms as compared to human but have evolved with the time that enables them to withstand extremes of climatic conditions and to develop many adaptive traits to survive under harsh conditions (antibiotic resistance). Thus, the evolutionary process does not prove that bacteria being less evolved organisms as compared to a human.


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