If they are lucky, some new trait will appear that might be beneficial. But it will be subtle and no one will notice it. The process that creates a new potentially useful trait is unlikely to create that same trait in more than one person. It will be many generations until the effect becomes common, not until most people that don't have the trait have died off. The vast majority of people will be descendants of that one individual.

• ##Selection: As long as society is already handling the deformity problem, perhaps they can expand the definition of deformity to include some of the more obvious weaknesses. For instance, should children with weak eyesight be allowed to survive? If not killed outright, perhaps they could be sterilized and used as slaves.

If they are lucky, some new trait will appear that might be beneficial. But it will be subtle and no one will notice it. The process that creates a new potentially useful trait is unlikely to create that same trait in more than one person. It will be many generations until the effect becomes common, not until most people that don't have the trait have died off. The vast majority of people will be descendants of that one individual.

There is a problem though. New mutations can take a long time to spread through the population, and meanwhile something must kill off everyone except for the one person with it and his descendants. Anything that will kill off most people within a few hundred years will already be killing them now. It will almost certainly be too late for any new beneficial mutations to spread through the population before the population becomes extinct.

Natural selection doesn't work well in a stable society. Without the sudden massive killing of large parts of the population, it isn't going to happen.

• ##Selection:

As noted, natural selection isn't going to work in a stable society. That society is going to have to implement an unnatural selection process (eugenics).

Society is already handling the deformity problem, so perhaps they can expand the definition of deformity to include some of the more obvious weaknesses. For instance, should children with weak eyesight be allowed to survive? If not killed outright, perhaps they could be sterilized and used as slaves. Maybe remove people with short arms or fingers? Or if your world is very sunny, then get rid of people that don't have dark skin.

It will be up to you, the author, to decide what the world is like and what attributes would help or hinder society.

"Every species would adapt, learn, and change rapidly" is not how evolution works.

You make it sound purposeful and controlled, when in fact evolution is totally random

Evolution involves two independent processes:

• ##Mutation (the creation of new traits): Genes are randomly damaged. The vast majority of these changes either have no effect or are fatal. A very small fraction might introduce some new potentially useful trait.

• ##Selection (the removal of currently bad traits): When the environment changes, some individuals have traits that help them to survive better than other individuals. I.e. they have more surviving offspring.

In your world:

• ##Mutation: In practice, mutation normally happens very slowly. If you want to speed it up in your world (by radiation or chemicals), that there will be very high rates of miscarriage, and very high rates of deformed births.

So your society will have to deal with this situation as a normal part of life, especially how to handle the deformed. It will require very high birthrates, with most women being pregnant for their entire fertile lives. Forget about having many interesting female characters.

If they are lucky, some new trait will appear that might be beneficial. But it will be subtle and no one will notice it. It will be many generations until the effect becomes common (i.e. not until most people that don't have the trait have died off).

• ##Selection: The environment will be hostile to your people. Many of them will be killed or injured.

People with traits that make them less likely to survive, such as not being able to run away quickly, or not being able to see well, will die more frequently than others.

These bad (in the context of the current environment) genetic traits will not be passed on the the next generation as frequently.

The question is, how to speed up this evolutionary process.

• ##Mutation: There are chemicals that cause genetic damage. Radiation causes genetic damage.

Perhaps your society can deliberately introduce artificial genetic damage as a normal part of life.

This will increase the miscarriages and deformities, so it has to be controlled so as not to eliminate the population.

• ##Selection: As long as society is already handling the deformity problem, perhaps they can expand the definition of deformity to include some of the more obvious weaknesses. For instance, should children with weak eyesight be allowed to survive? If not killed outright, perhaps they could be sterilized and used as slaves.

The critical thing in your society will be to achieve a balance between the birthrate (which must be as high as possible) and the rate at which bad traits are removed from the gene pool (by death or sterilization).

How your society puts this into practice is up to you.

"Every species would adapt, learn, and change rapidly" is not how evolution works.

You make it sound purposeful and controlled, when in fact evolution is totally random

Evolution involves two independent processes:

• ##Mutation (the creation of new traits): Genes are randomly damaged. The vast majority of these changes either have no effect or are fatal. A very small fraction might introduce some new potentially useful trait.

• ##Selection (the removal of currently bad traits): When the environment changes, some individuals have traits that help them to survive better than other individuals. I.e. they have more surviving offspring.

In your world:

• ##Mutation: In practice, mutation normally happens very slowly. If you want to speed it up in your world (by radiation or chemicals), that there will be very high rates of miscarriage, and very high rates of deformed births.

So your society will have to deal with this situation as a normal part of life, especially how to handle the deformed. It will require very high birthrates, with most women being pregnant for their entire fertile lives. Forget about having many interesting female characters.

If they are lucky, some new trait will appear that might be beneficial. But it will be subtle and no one will notice it. The process that creates a new potentially useful trait is unlikely to create that same trait in more than one person. It will be many generations until the effect becomes common, not until most people that don't have the trait have died off. The vast majority of people will be descendants of that one individual.

• ##Selection: The environment will be hostile to your people. Many of them will be killed or injured.

People with traits that make them less likely to survive, such as not being able to run away quickly, or not being able to see well, will die more frequently than others.

These bad (in the context of the current environment) genetic traits will not be passed on the the next generation as frequently.

The question is, how to speed up this evolutionary process.

• ##Mutation: There are chemicals that cause genetic damage. Radiation causes genetic damage.

Perhaps your society can deliberately introduce artificial genetic damage as a normal part of life.

This will increase the miscarriages and deformities, so it has to be controlled so as not to eliminate the population.

• ##Selection: As long as society is already handling the deformity problem, perhaps they can expand the definition of deformity to include some of the more obvious weaknesses. For instance, should children with weak eyesight be allowed to survive? If not killed outright, perhaps they could be sterilized and used as slaves.

The critical thing in your society will be to achieve a balance between the birthrate (which must be as high as possible) and the rate at which bad traits are removed from the gene pool (by death or sterilization).

How your society puts this into practice is up to you.