When I studied biology at my medical school we used to learn things about a cent

Question

When I studied biology at my medical school we used to learn things about a century old: the famous Darwin's voyage on "Beagle" to the Galapagos Islands, the classical triad of his Theory of Evolution, etc.

At the same time we were told that there is no any evidence found in nature for many of these statemetns of his evolutional theory. For example people studied wildlife around Chernobyl and found that no new species emerged due to much higher mutation rate due to radiation. On the contrary, there were no significant differences between the species living under elevated radiation level and those living in "normal" conditions.

Do these facts somehow influece our understanding of the theory of evolution? Are there any breaking finding happended in the last 20 years that prove or disprove it?

Explanation / Answer

My friend Brightblades is right in one thing. It seems your teacher was working off a caricature of what the theory of evolution actually says. First of all, you should read Sklivvz's excellent answer at this question. Now to address the elephant in the room, the accident at Chernobyl only happened in 1986. That was only 26 years ago. In that timeframe, noticeable effects in an animal population really would not be at all noticeable. Furthermore, the paper cited by Marta Cz-C actually shows that there have been some changes (in fungi though, not animals).

fungi seem to interact with the ionizing radiation differently from other Earth

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