Evolutionary theory underpins all of today’s biological research. It provides a unifying framework for all of biology. Although it is not a complicated idea, few individuals have a firm grip on it. This includes the vast majority of biologists. The notion that organisms may be neatly ranked from “lower” (like germs) to “higher” (like animals) to “highest” (like humans) on an evolutionary scale is widely held but incorrect. Misconceptions abound in popular science accounts of evolution. Even reputable publications like those found in the biological sciences aren’t immune to error. “It was Charles Darwin’s profound realization that all organisms are related in an incredible chain of being…” Common ancestry proposed by Darwin really disproved Linnaeus’s grand chain of being. Misconceptions about evolution are harmful to the field of biology as a whole and to study of evolution in particular. When exposed to the abundance of pop scientific misinformation, even those with a passing interest in science are inclined to write off evolution as a “soft science.” When scientists from other domains openly hypothesize on evolution, they contribute to the misconception that evolutionary biology is a “soft science.” The progenitor of all life on Earth existed between 3.5 and 3.8 billions year ago. Early biogenic graphite, microbial mat fossils, and fossilized multicellular creatures all appear in the fossil record. Throughout Earth’s evolutionary history, new species have been formed (speciation), within-species alterations have occurred (anagenesis), and old species have been lost (extinction), all of which have created current patterns of biodiversity. Reconstructing phylogenetic trees using morphological and biochemical similarities between species with a more recent common ancestor is possible. Through the use of mathematical & theoretical biology techniques, as well as data gathered from the field and laboratory, evolutionary biologists have kept investigating several facet