What does it mean when science builds a better mousetrap nature builds a better mouse?

Answer 1

This saying relates to the process of evolution that is taking effect as a result of humanity's influence on the environment. For example, even though vaccines are created to immunize people against certain viral diseases, and antibiotics are created to kill deadly bacteria, these disease-causing microbes mutate to become resistant to our weapons. Fleas and lice gradually become immune to the poisons that are used to kill them. Wild animals such as tigers are shot, but the most intelligent and therefore hardest-to-hunt specimens will be most likely to avoid slaughter and pass these helpful traits to the next generation. Nature has changed over the eons to survive the gradual changes that the earth has undergone; the advent of humanity was hardly a gradual change, having been too abrupt for some species (namely those that are going extinct), but the strongest, most adaptable, and most prolific life forms take it in stride.