The sun provides our world just enough radiation to give mutations that natural selection can take advantage of, yet not so much radiation as to completely incinerate us. Perhaps those evolutionary surges that biologists refer to are from times when the ozone is a bit thinner and more radiation pours through. With that in mind, does that mean that all of the radiation we are bombarding ourselves with (from depleting our ozone to carrying our cellphones everywhere) is also speeding up our change as a species? I suppose that's one of the primary arguments of Marvel's X-Men comics.
Considering the powerful nature of the sun in both sustaining and changing life, it's little wonder that so many cultures worshiped it.