Evolution and the Continuum
The continuum is a range, series, or spectrum that gradually changes but has distinctly defined extremes. It’s often used as a synonym for scale or gradient, although those are slightly different.
For example, a parent’s discipline style may fall on one side of a basic continuum between heavy disciplinarians and light-hearted child centered parents. Similarly, elite runners aren’t all slow-twitch or all fast-twitch—each person falls somewhere on the continuum between a natural slow-twitch athlete and a natural, faster twitch athlete.
Another example is the space-time continuum, which refers to a concept in relativity theory that tries to describe the relationship between the past, present, and future by describing the folds in the fabric of time and space. When talking about evolution, a continuum is a way to discuss how biological change has taken place over time, rather than just trying to pin down what exactly happened at any given point. It’s also a useful way to talk about how human behavior varies from individual killings to wars on an enormous scale. the continuum