Evolution: A Detailed Anaylsis

[Cimber]

The rationale of this post is to for once and for all clear up every misunderstanding or confusion about evolution, which I am seeing all to often on these boards. As a man of science I wish to clear up any misunderstanding or 'fact' that those outside the scientific community tell others. The purpose of this post is NOT to discourage creationism but to explain...

1. What evolution is

2. Why it is accepted in the scientific community

3. Common misconceptions

4. Explain to the 'everyday person' the scientific terms used in evolution and what they really mean.

I also encourage a self-proclaimed creationist to make a post similar to mine, to help those who don't fully understand it.

The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection

The two scientist most known to be associated with evolution are Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. Both scientists formulated their theories independently, and each explained how organisms have adapted to different environments.

Darwin published his theory in 1859 in a book called On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. During this time, the leading theory was called "Special Creation", which stated that all the species on the earth were created independently by God. The key aspect to this theory held that species did not change.

Evolution Direct Definition

Change in characteristics over time

More precisely, the change in allele frequencies over time.

Micro Evolution

Micro Evolution is, in the most general sense, evolution that occurs within a population (Individuals can interbreed and are part of the same gene pool). Biologists who study this level of research indicate evolution is the change of gene frequency within the population.

This image shows a change in gene frequencies. This indicates that the population has evolved.

Processes of Micro Evolution

Mutation

Two green beetles reproduce. 1 of the offspring has mutated and has a brown gene instead of a green one.

Gene Flow

Gene Flow occurs when organisms from another population 'immigrate' to another population. This results in an increase in a certain gene.

Genetic Drift

Certain genes occur more frequently in a population randomly when members reproduce. In this case, brown increases while green decreases.

Natural Selection

This is the most exciting process in terms of observing how evolution works. As you can see in the image, the bird eats the green beetles more frequently because they are more easily seen. Therefore the brown beetles go on to reproduce and their frequency of genes increases.

Macro Evolution

This is the most controversial of the two (micro and macro) evolutionary process, not in the scientific community, but due to certain religious pressures.

Macro evolution is evolution occurring above the species level. Macro Evolution is not able to be observed first hand, unlike Micro Evolution, but that doesn't make it untrue. There are many scientific procedures that are followed to come to the proper conclusion.

The same exact processes involved in Micro Evolution occur in Macro Evolution, just on a much larger scale.

Biologists DO NOT question the holistic conclusions of Evolution, but they do question certain aspects of it. This is a short list of questions they are trying to answer...

1. Does evolution tend to proceed slowly and steadily or in quick jumps?

2. Why are some clades (A group of organisms that includes all the descendents of a common ancestor) very diverse and some unusually sparse?

3. How does evolution produce new and complex features?

4. Are there trends in evolution, and if so, what processes generate them?

Species Change as Time Passes

Darwin proposed that species that exist today have descended from preexisting species that changed through time.

Evidence

Transitional Forms

Darwin and modern scientists believe that extinct species in the fossil record are related to modern living species. Transitional forms are fossils of species with traits that are intermediate between those of older and younger species.

Example- Whales evolved from fox/small dog-sized animals. The oldest fossils suggest their oldest ancestor was a semi aquatic animal similar to hippopotamuses, due to their location in rocks that form in ocean deposits. Limbs reduced in size and became more aquatic.

This is an image of Australopithecus Afarensis which is accepted as an important transition form in the scientific community.

Extinction

Darwin and other scientists interpret the finding of extinct animal fossils as evidence that species are not static, but dynamic. They change and evolve into different species. If species have gone extinct, then they have changed through time. There have been more species that have gone extinct than there are species that exist today. Data suggests that species have gone extinct progressively throughout the history of Earth. One or two catastrophic events do not account for the amount of extinct species.

Structural Homologies

Structural Homologies are morphological traits that are similar. These can be similarities found in different aspects of an organism, including but not limited to such things as limbs (as seen in the above photo). All mammals descended from a common ancestor, and it can be observed that this common ancestor had the same foundation as its descendants.

Artificial Selection

Artificial selection can be described as an 'experimental natural selection'. Artificial selection can be done on both plants and animals. It helps us understand natural selection better due to environmental forces. Selective breeding and artificial selection is most evident in Broccoli/Cabbage/Cauliflower, which is descended from Yellow Mustard.

Evidence for Evolution: Summed Up

-Vast number of species have gone extinct

-Fossils of older species are similar to those of living species in the same area

-Vestigial Traits

-Populations of species are observed to be changing

How to Tell a Population is Evolving due to Natural Selection

1.Variation in the population. Mutations cause the changes seen in the organism. Genetic changes in DNA lead to structural changes which are past to offspring.

2.Heritable Variation. Variation in the genotypes (Genetic code for what can be observed) occur before an organism produces offspring, which causes it to be passed down.

3.Variation in Fitness. Fitness is the ability for an offspring to produce fertile offspring. Organisms in a population have a higher fitness than others and thus have offspring better adapted to its environment.

4.Selection. Those individuals with a gene that leads to better adaptation should have a higher reproductive success, and if it does, selection occurs and adaptation is met.

Common Myths in Evolution: What you need to know!

1. Evolution can only occur in populations. That is, individuals can not change during natural selection. Example: During a drought the beak size of individual finches does not become deeper, the average beak depth of the population increases over time due to higher fitness (remember, fitness means higher rate of reproduction) in deeper beaked individuals.

2. Evolution Doesn't Make Organisms "Better" Organisms that experience evolution do not necessarily get more 'complex' or 'better' due to evolution. They merely change to better fit their environment. For example, Tapeworms evolved from having a sophisticated digestive system to losing their digestive tract. No organism is higher than another.

3. Not all Traits are Adaptive. One of the most prime examples of this are goose bumps and the appendix. Both structures do not contribute or add to an organism's fitness and therefore are not adaptive.

4. Humans and Apes Share a Common Ancestor Humans did not evolve from Apes. They merely share the same common ancestor.

5. Natural Selection is Not Random Natural Selection is not a random process. The phenomenon of genetic variation due to mutation is random but those variants that cause a better 'fit' to the environment will become more widespread.

List of Terms Important in Evolution

Fossil- any trace of an organism that lived in the past.

Fossil Record- All fossils that have been found and described in scientific literature

Geologic Time Scale- Periods of geologic time in eons, epochs, and periods.

Transitional Form- Fossil species with traits that are intermediate between those of older and younger species

Vestigial Traits- Reduced structures that have no function or reduced function but are similar to functioning organs/structures of other organisms

Phylogeny- Family tree of populations or species

Structural Homologies- Morphological traits that are similar

Adaptation- heritable trait that increases fitness of an individual in a particular environment relative to individuals lacking the trait.

Fitness- Ability of an individual to produce offspring.

Evolution Is Just a Theory Argument

A theory is a proposed explanation for a very general class of phenomena or observation. Theories must have a proposed pattern and mechanism. Evolution has both of these. Inferring historical events from contemporary evidence is a valid research program in science. Remember that for some 150 years after the atomic theory was proposed, no one had actually seen an atom. Yet the theory was widely accepted as correct during this time. The theory of Evolution is supported by mountains of evidence and is generally accepted by every biologist. Of course evolution in a theoretical sense changes in minute ways, but the definition concerning how it works holistically has and will remain the same.

This is still a work in progress and will continue to add new parts to this thread. If you have any recommendations as to what should be explained or if you have any questions please post them and I will add them. This is a very brief start to a very large compilation that is planned to help educate the community.

Edited August 20, 2007 by Cimber

[Lt_Ripley]

thank you. I enjoyed reading it.

[antiaging]

The rationale of this post is to for once and for all clear up every misunderstanding or confusion about evolution, which I am seeing all to often on these boards. As a man of science I wish to clear up any misunderstanding or 'fact' that those outside the scientific community tell others. The purpose of this post is NOT to discourage creationism but to explain...

1. What evolution is

2. Why it is accepted in the scientific community

3. Common misconceptions

4. Explain to the 'everyday person' the scientific terms used in evolution and what they really mean.

Evolution FOR THE ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES is simply bad science and is incorrect. Natural selection is a species adapting to its environment as dormant genes become active. This creates a different type of the same species or a different breed of the same species. It has never created a completely new species. Extrapolating this adaptation of a species to its environment to try to explain the origin of all species is just plain error. --bad, false science!

The rationale behind this following post is to once and for all clear up the UNSCIENTIFIC errors in the theory of evolution for the ORIGIN OF THE DIFFERENT SPECIES.

Scientific evidence to argue for the existence of God and against evolution for the origin of the species.

The laws of probability will tell you that this universe with all of its ordered complexity, could not have come into being by chance. To have that much order and complexity, the universe had to be designed by an intelligent creator. There is enough coded information in one human chromosome to

fill a small library of books. This had to be designed by an

intelligent creator.

The probability against that happening by chance is very

very high. It's like giving a chimpanzee a typewriter and letting him hit the keys at

random. The probability against his being able to type a small library full of books by hitting keys at random is so high that for all

practical purposes you can consider it impossible.

Because of this, there are some scientists and mathematicians who are forced to

believe in the existence of God by logic alone.

In order for a single cell to live, all of the parts of the cell must be assembled before life starts. This involves 60,000 proteins that are assembled in roughly 100 different combinations. The probability that these complex groupings of proteins could have happened just by chance is extremely small. It is about 1 chance in 10 to the 4,478,296 power. The probability of a living cell being assembled just by chance is so small, that you may as well consider it to be impossible. This means that the probability that the living cell is created by an intelligent creator, that designed it, is extremely large. The probability that God created the living cell is 10 to the 4,478,296 power to 1.

Example: 10 to the 6th power is one million, 10 to the 7th power is 10 million, 10 to the 8th power is 100 million, 10 to the 9th power is a billion; each time the power goes up by one, the number goes up by ten times as much. 10 to the 4,478,296 power, is a tremendously large number.

[The probability of this was calculated by Fred Hoyle, famous astronomer and mathematician.]

The laws conscerning entropy are well established in physics. Entropy is the measure of the randomness or disorder in a system. Entropy is always observed to increase in natural physical processes. Natural processes in science always tend toward more disorder. The idea that the universe could develope the ordered complexity that it has, by natural processes violates the law of entropy, that says disorder must increase in natural processes. Therefore, one must conclude that the complex order that we see in the universe did not come about by chance scientific processes. It was developed on purpose by an intelligent creator. God created it.

The law of entropy exists in thermodynamic systems involving heat, that is true. Entropy also exists as a measure of disorder in a system in statistical mechanics having nothing to do with thermodynamics. S=klnp + c. S = value of measure for a system in a given state. P is the probability of the occurence of that state. K is a fixed constant and c an arbitrary constant. Heat is disordered energy. Entropy is a broader term describing either heat or the amount of disorder in a system. The chemical reactions that you suppose will produce hundreds of thousands of ordered building blocks of amino acids to produce genes cannot occur by chance processes because statistical mechanics says that the reactions will tend toward more disorder. Genes and chromosomes have hundreds of thousands of complexly ordered parts. Accoording to statistical mechanics this much order cannot come from chance scientific processes. It had to come from an intelligent creator.

In instances where order increases to any significant degree it must be deliberately designed to do so. Heat is disordered energy. Something as simple as a refrigerator, that produces more order in a specific region by cooling down temperature, had to be designed to do so.

There are no existing physical rules, that have been observed by science, that indicate that ordered complexity can evolve by random chance occurences. In Science there is an observed law of entropy. In all natural occurences in science, the amount of disorder increases. In other words, the physical laws that are observed in nature lead to more disorder; they do not lead to ordered complexity.

The only thing observed to cause more complexity is an intelligence, of some sort deliberately assembling something together.

Example: A pile of building materials stacked in a pile is hit by a tornado. When the pieces come down, they do not assemble themselves into a house. They just fall into a more disordered pile of building materials. An intelligence must deliberately assemble the materials into a house to get ordered complexity.

God created the ordered complexity in the universe. There are no observed scientific processes that can account for it happening by itself.

Natural selection will weed out inferior members of a species according to environmental requirements. But, this only leads to a species changing to another variety of the same species known as a subspecies; that is all that is observed in nature. [Crickets in dark caves become white with no eyes; also fish in caves.] But natural selection has not been observed to cause one species to change into another new species. Fish do not change into amphibians; amphibians do not change into reptiles; reptiles do not change into mammals. Natural selection cannot account for the origin of the different species. There are a million missing links in the fossil record as it has been found. The intermediate stages that would be necessary for fish to become amphibians, and reptiles to become mammals, have not been found in the fossils. The fossils show evidence that all of the species were originally created by God and they did not evolve into one another.

"Biochemical systems are exceedingly complex, so much so that the chance

of their being formed through random shufflings of simple organic

molecules is exceedingly minute, to a point indeed where it is

insensibly different from zero"

- Hoyle and Wickramasinghe, p.3

"No matter how large the environment one considers, lfe cannot have had

a random beginning. Troops of monkeys thundering away at random on

typewriters could not produce the works of Shakespeare, for the

practical reason that the whole observable universe is not large enough

to contain the necessary monkey hordes, the necessary typewriters, and

certainly the waste paper baskets required for the deposition of wrong

attempts. The same is true for living material"

Ibid., p.148

"The trouble is that there are about two thousand enzymes, and the

chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is one one part in

(10^20)^2000 = 10^40000, an outrageously small probability that could

not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup. If

one is not prejudiced either by social beliefs or by a scientific

training into the conviction that life originated on the Earth [by

chance or natural processes], this simple calculation wipes the idea

entirely out of court"

Ibid., p.24

"Any theory with a probability of being correct that is larger than one

part in 10^40000 must be judged superior to random shuffling. The

theory that life was assembled by an intelligence has, we believe, a

probability vastly higher than one part in 10^40000 of being the correct

explaination of the many curious facts discussed in previous chapters.

Indeed, such a theory is so obvious that one wonders why it is not

widely accepted as being self-evident. The reasons are psychological

rather than scientific."

Ibid., p.130

"All point mutations that have been studied on the molecular level turn

out to reduce the genetic information and not to increase it."

- Lee Spetner, "Not by Chance"(Brooklyn, New York: The Judaica

Press,Inc.) p.138

"It appears that the neo-darwinism hypothesis is insufficient to explain

some of the observations that were not available at the time the

paradigm took shape. ...One might ask why the neo-darwinian paradigm

does not weaken or disappear if it is at odds with critical factual

information. The reasons are not necessarily scientific ones but rather

may be rooted in human nature"

- Christian Schwabe "On the Validity of Molecular Evolution", Trends in

Biochemical Sciences, July 1986, p.282

"The really significant finding that comes to light from comparing the

proteins' amino acid sequences is that it is impossible to arrange them

in any sort of evolutionary series" - Ibid. p.289

"Thousands of different sequences, protein, and nucleic acid, have now

been compared in hundreds of different species but never has any

sequnces been found to be in any sense the lineal descendant or ancestor

of any other sequence." - Ibid. pp. 289-290

"Each class at a molecular level is unique, isolated and unlinked by

intermediates. Thus molecules, like fossils, have failed to provide the

elusive intermediates so long sought by evolutionary biology." - Ibid

p.290

"There is little doubt that if this molecular evidence had been

available one century ago it would have been seized upon with

devastating effect by the opponents of evolution theory like Agassiz and

Owen, and the idea of organic evolution might never have been

accepted." - Ibid pp.290-291

"In terms of their biochemistry, none of the species deemed

'intermediate', 'ancestral' or 'primitive' by generations of

evolutionary biologists, and alluded to as evidence of sequence in

nature, show any sign of their supposed intermediate status" - Ibid

p.293

Duane T. Gish, The Origin of Mammals : If this view of evolution is true, the fossil record should produce an enormous number of transitional forms. Natural history museums should be overflowing with undoubted intermediate forms. About 250,000 fossil species have been collected and classified?Applying evolution theory and the laws of probability, most of these 250,000 species should represent transitional forms.

Dr. Walt Brown, In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood, page 10: Fossil links are missing between numerous plants, between single-celled forms of life and invertebrates, between invertebrates and vertebrates, between fish and amphibians, between amphibians and reptiles, between reptiles and mammals, between reptiles and birds, between primates and other mammals, and between apes and other primates. The fossil record has been studied so thoroughly that it is safe to conclude that these gaps are real; they will never be filled. ---

Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species:

the number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed [must] truly be enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely-graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory [of evolution].

Dr. Niles Eldredge, paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History, "Missing, Believed Nonexistent", Manchester Guardian, 26 November 1978:?

"The search for 'missing links' between various living creatures, like humans and apes, is probably fruitless?because they probably never existed as distinct transitional types...But no one has yet found any evidence of such transitional creatures?If it is not the fossil record which is incomplete then it must be the theory."

Lyall Watson, "The Water People", Science Digest, May 1982:

"Modern apes, for instance, seem to have sprung out of nowhere. They have no yesterday, no fossil record. And the true origin of modern humans?of upright, naked, toolmaking, big-brained beings?is, if we are to be honest with ourselves, an equally mysterious matter."

Dr. Collin Patterson, a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in Britain, when asked why he hadn't included any illustrations of transitional forms in his book, Evolution, he replied in a letter: "I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them?I will lay it on the line?there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument."

"The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in the organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution." S.J.Gould. "Evolution Now: A Century After Darwin", 1982, p. 140

Prigogine, a Nobel Prize winning thermodynamicist:

"The probability that at ordinary temperatures a macroscopic number of molecules is assembled to rise to the highly ordered structures and to the coordinated functions characterizing living organisms is vanishingly small. The idea of spontaneous genesis of life in its present form is therefore highly improbable even on the scale of the billions of years during which prebiotic evolution is speculated to have occured."

Ilya Prigogine, et al, Nov 1972, Physics Today p. 23-31

They've also found human and dinosaur footprints in the same rock strata, in places like Turkmenia, in Nicaragua and near the palaxi river in the US.

Noah's flood mixed up all the layers under it. So any fossils from beneath the sedimentary layer cannot be dated to the rock they are found in.

Edited August 18, 2007 by antiaging

[questionmark]

And to sum it all up:

Evolution does not care if anybody believes in it, it will be simply go on

Believes like religion need people to beleive in it or it will perish

Given these two postulates, which one do you think is more believable? Evolution or religion?

[Leonardo]

antiaging,

Follow this link

This is your claim, now read the refutation in the link provided on that page.

Any other claims you may have are probably located here

I'd advise you look at them and see why they are either untrue or have been based on a misunderstanding of Evolutionary Theory.

[Cimber]

Antiaging, your post is riddled with so much scientific falsities its hilarious to read.

Evolution FOR THE ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES is simply bad science and is incorrect. Natural selection is a species adapting to its environment as dormant genes become active. This creates a different type of the same species or a different breed of the same species. It has never created a completely new species. Extrapolating this adaptation of a species to its environment to try to explain the origin of all species is just plain error. --bad, false science!

The origin of species follows the scientific theory temple to the tee. Yours on the other hand, doesn't.

This creates a different type of the same species or a different breed of the same species. It has never created a completely new species.

You don't know what a species is. A species

a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. Evolution does create a completely new species, and what you don't seem to understand is that inference in a scientific sense is completely acceptable. First-hand observation IS NOT NEEDED. Like I stated, for 150 years the atom was generally accepted by everyone even though it was not seen.

There is enough coded information in one human chromosome to fill a small library of books. This had to be designed by an intelligent creator.

The first part you said is true, but you are making false accusations by saying it had to be designed by a creator. Do you understand how a chromosome is made and how it stores information? If you did you would see that it wouldn't have to be designed by such a creator.

Because of this, there are some scientists and mathematicians who are forced to believe in the existence of God by logic alone.

Those are bad scientists and mathematicians

Natural processes in science always tend toward more disorder. The idea that the universe could develope the ordered complexity that it has, by natural processes violates the law of entropy, that says disorder must increase in natural processes. Therefore, one must conclude that the complex order that we see in the universe did not come about by chance scientific processes. It was developed on purpose by an intelligent creator. God created it.

You are again, confused with science. The second law of thermodynamics states that isolated systems tend to proceed toward higher entropy. That means this only applies to systems that are closed. Open systems can exhange energy with the outside. Living organisms draw energy by eating.

The probability against that happening by chance is very

very high. It's like giving a chimpanzee a typewriter and letting him hit the keys at

random. The probability against his being able to type a small library full of books by hitting keys at random is so high that for all

practical purposes you can consider it impossible.

Because of this, there are some scientists and mathematicians who are forced to

believe in the existence of God by logic alone.

In order for a single cell to live, all of the parts of the cell must be assembled before life starts. This involves 60,000 proteins that are assembled in roughly 100 different combinations. The probability that these complex groupings of proteins could have happened just by chance is extremely small. It is about 1 chance in 10 to the 4,478,296 power. The probability of a living cell being assembled just by chance is so small, that you may as well consider it to be impossible. This means that the probability that the living cell is created by an intelligent creator, that designed it, is extremely large. The probability that God created the living cell is 10 to the 4,478,296 power to 1.

Example: 10 to the 6th power is one million, 10 to the 7th power is 10 million, 10 to the 8th power is 100 million, 10 to the 9th power is a billion; each time the power goes up by one, the number goes up by ten times as much. 10 to the 4,478,296 power, is a tremendously large number.

[The probability of this was calculated by Fred Hoyle, famous astronomer and mathematician.]

What you are referencing was the work by Sir Fred Hoyle 'famous' for 'Hoyle's Fallacy'. There is a key problem with his assessment though. His probability statistics is unfounded. Meaning he has no basis to formulate his results. It is impossible to know how many possible combinations existed while life was forming. With this, it is impossible to calculate such results.

Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics, and Probability of Abiogenesis Calculation by Ian Musgrave explains it clearly...

1. They calculate the probability of the formation of a "modern" protein, or even a complete bacterium with all "modern" proteins, by random events.

2. They assume that there is a fixed number of proteins, with fixed sequences for each protein, that are required for life.

3. They calculate the probability of sequential trials, rather than simultaneous trials.

4. They misunderstand what is meant by a probability calculation.

5. They seriously underestimate the number of functional enzymes/ribozymes present in a group of random sequences.

Second, I am not even going to comment on the rest of the post because you were lazy enough to just copy and paste a past post where much of it was discredited, instead of writing up a new one.

[Raptor]

Very nice post, Cimber. I was thinking of starting a thread like this myself. When I have the time and feel up to it I'd like to add a few pieces explaining how evolution works, the individual mechanisms and what they do. Much of it is surprisingly simple. I can't help but think if more people were exposed to it, they might not be so quick to reject it.

[questionmark]

Very nice post, Cimber. I was thinking of starting a thread like this myself. When I have the time and feel up to it I'd like to add a few pieces explaining how evolution works, the individual mechanisms and what they do. Much of it is surprisingly simple. I can't help but think if more people were exposed to it, they might not be so quick to reject it.

If you need some help and or references, at your disposition gentlemen...

[Lt_Ripley]

And to sum it all up:

Evolution does not care if anybody believes in it, it will be simply go on

Believes like religion need people to beleive in it or it will perish

Given these two postulates, which one do you think is more believable? Evolution or religion?

ouch !!!!!!!!! lol

[Guardsman Bass]

antiaging,

Follow this link

This is your claim, now read the refutation in the link provided on that page.

Any other claims you may have are probably located here

I'd advise you look at them and see why they are either untrue or have been based on a misunderstanding of Evolutionary Theory.

I would probably say "don't bother". Last time he brought this up, more than a few people (including myself) responded and criticized it, including his egregious misquoting of Niles Eldredge at the bottom. If he's still copy-and-pasting the same nonsense even after detailed refutations, he's probably not going to listen.

[Cimber]

-Updated information on the original post-

[Raptor]

Very good.

[Beckys_Mom]

And to sum it all up:

Evolution does not care if anybody believes in it, it will be simply go on

Believes like religion need people to beleive in it or it will perish

Given these two postulates, which one do you think is more believable? Evolution or religion?

Well said...you are CORRECT

Evolution doesnt give a brass monkies (pun so NOT intended here lol)..if anyone believes in it..it will continue to go on and on

[Beckys_Mom]

Evidence

Transitional Forms

Darwin and modern scientists believe that extinct species in the fossil record are related to modern living species. Transitional forms are fossils of species with traits that are intermediate between those of older and younger species.

Example- Whales evolved from fox/small dog-sized animals. The oldest fossils suggest their oldest ancestor was a semi aquatic animal similar to hippopotamuses, due to their location in rocks that form in ocean deposits. Limbs reduced in size and became more aquatic.

This is an image of Australopithecus Afarensis which is accepted as an important transition form in the scientific community.

Extinction

Darwin and other scientists interpret the finding of extinct animal fossils as evidence that species are not static, but dynamic. They change and evolve into different species. If species have gone extinct, then they have changed through time. There have been more species that have gone extinct than there are species that exist today. Data suggests that species have gone extinct progressively throughout the history of Earth. One or two catastrophic events do not account for the amount of extinct species.

Structural Homologies

Structural Homologies are morphological traits that are similar. These can be similarities found in different aspects of an organism, including but not limited to such things as limbs (as seen in the above photo). All mammals descended from a common ancestor, and it can be observed that this common ancestor had the same foundation as its descendants.

Artificial Selection

Artificial selection can be described as an 'experimental natural selection'. Artificial selection can be done on both plants and animals. It helps us understand natural selection better due to environmental forces. Selective breeding and artificial selection is most evident in Broccoli/Cabbage/Cauliflower, which is descended from Yellow Mustard.

Evidence for Evolution: Summed Up

-Vast number of species have gone extinct

-Fossils of older species are similar to those of living species in the same area

-Vestigial Traits

-Populations of species are observed to be changing

How to Tell a Population is Evolving due to Natural Selection

1.Variation in the population. Mutations cause the changes seen in the organism. Genetic changes in DNA lead to structural changes which are past to offspring.

2.Heritable Variation. Variation in the genotypes (Genetic code for what can be observed) occur before an organism produces offspring, which causes it to be passed down.

3.Variation in Fitness. Fitness is the ability for an offspring to produce fertile offspring. Organisms in a population have a higher fitness than others and thus have offspring better adapted to its environment.

4.Selection. Those individuals with a gene that leads to better adaptation should have a higher reproductive success, and if it does, selection occurs and adaptation is met.

Common Myths in Evolution: What you need to know!

1. Evolution can only occur in populations. That is, individuals can not change during natural selection. Example: During a drought the beak size of individual finches does not become deeper, the average beak depth of the population increases over time due to higher fitness (remember, fitness means higher rate of reproduction) in deeper beaked individuals.

2. Evolution Doesn't Make Organisms "Better" Organisms that experience evolution do not necessarily get more 'complex' or 'better' due to evolution. They merely change to better fit their environment. For example, Tapeworms evolved from having a sophisticated digestive system to losing their digestive tract. No organism is higher than another.

3. Not all Traits are Adaptive. One of the most prime examples of this are goose bumps and the appendix. Both structures do not contribute or add to an organism's fitness and therefore are not adaptive.

4. Humans and Apes Share a Common Ancestor Humans did not evolve from Apes. They merely share the same common ancestor.

5. Natural Selection is Not Random Natural Selection is not a random process. The phenomenon of genetic variation due to mutation is random but those variants that cause a better 'fit' to the environment will become more widespread.

List of Terms Important in Evolution

Ok I didnt quite quote your enire post..only due to the size of it

but all I can say is WOW..outstanding post and great effort went into it....by far the only real post that actually explains a lot

[questionmark]

-Updated information on the original post-

Good job !

[Serpentine]

For those of you interested in recent work in the field of human evolution I can recommend the BBC Radio 4 website which has :-

An exploration of the latest ideas and discoveries in the quest to understand the origins and evolution of humanity.

In the year 2000, zoologist Aubrey Manning presented a series of three programmes on human evolution for Radio 4. In the last seven years, palaeoanthropologists and archaeologists have made a host of stunning discoveries, many of which have defied expectations and overturned cherished theories.

The three programmes of Origins Revisited bring listeners up to date on the latest fossil finds and new ideas about human evolution.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/origins_revisited.shtml

[Grandpa Greenman]

I don't know how I missed this. I have grown tired of the creation/evolution threads for the most part. You can explain evolution over and over again and the creationist will still claim it is faults, because if evolution is true it blows their literal view of the Bible out of the water. They would rather reject all the evidence and look like fools than do that. Cinder you did a wonderful job on this thread, but if you look at the latest threads on evolution/creation you can see it fell on deaf ears. How sad. Anyway keep up the good work Cinder many be someone will hear.

[camlax]

Hey Cimber, just a thought you should add something on the evolution of corn since that is pretty well known and is a great example of speciation. I could type something up tomorrow when I get some free time if you would like.

Great post though, I wanted to make something like this as well, but was not sure if I had the time.

[Cimber]

Hey Cimber, just a thought you should add something on the evolution of corn since that is pretty well known and is a great example of speciation. I could type something up tomorrow when I get some free time if you would like.

Great post though, I wanted to make something like this as well, but was not sure if I had the time.

I'll be sure to add something later tonight on the matter since I have information on it. Although, plants were never my favorite piece of course work lol

Edited August 22, 2007 by Cimber

[camlax]

I'll be sure to add something later tonight on the matter since I have information on it. Although, plants were never my favorite piece of course work lol

I whole heartedly agree. I took plant biology as a freshman in my undergrad, that lasted all of three days before I dropped it for another class . Its such a good example though, because observed macro-evolution. Well so long as you believe the historical writings on corn!

Edited August 22, 2007 by camlax

[Nachtmahr]

You can explain evolution over and over again and the creationist will still claim it is faults, because if evolution is true it blows their literal view of the Bible out of the water. They would rather reject all the evidence and look like fools than do that.

Watch it, pal. I don't call you names.

[momentarylapseofreason]

Watch it, pal. I don't call you names.

From Nachtmahre's helmet :People who speak against mother Teresa are lower than dirt.

This is what you just said in another post ? Forgot already ?

Yours, truly

Angel with a dirty face

Edited August 22, 2007 by momentarylapseofreason

[camlax]

From Nachtmahre's helmet :People who speak against mother Teresa are lower than dirt.

This is what you just said in another post ? Forgot already ?

Yours, truly

Angel with a dirty face

Zing

[Grandpa Greenman]

Watch it, pal. I don't call you names.

I don't believe I called you "names", but if the shoe fits what can I say.

[Raptor]

It's a shame to let such a good thread go to waste.

Here's a good video which explains the process of natural selection with a demonstration.

.