Can you please tell me about evolution without going into detail about religion? What is evolution?

Question

I have seen several evolution-related questions on Y!A, but the answerers almost always seem to get distracted by religion, even when nobody asked about their beliefs. This question is for everyone, no matter what their beliefs are, but I want you to explain what evolution is without going on about religious matters. I would also like you to answer this without "cutting and pasting" from wikipedia or other googled sources.

Answer 1

Good answers. Maybe that's enough for you. But I would like to clear some points here.
- Evolution always ends in religious debate because people like "Julie" believe that evolution has to be denied alltogether so that God can exist. That is wrong.
- Still, people like "The rebel" are convinced that evolution is a theory that tries to demonstrate that God does not exist. That is wrong too.
- Others like "Bonnie" turn evolutionary theory into the story of how humans came to be, which is an almost-religious way of looking at it.
- Then some people like "Henry W" simplify evolutionary theory by reducing it to it's most popularized element: the survival of the fittest. And then to a simplified version of it, very popular in the US which actually comes from Spencer and not from Darwin.
- The other part of Darwinian evolutionary theory is stated here by "Mystique", adaptation to the environment, which is not itself evolution but the mecanism by which evolution works.
- I would have given the 10 points to "Elmjunburke" if it where'nt because he makes a common confusion: to forget that evolutionary theory (ever since Darwin though not before him) is about living beings and not about the planet. The plante changes, sure, so you can say it "evolves", but in no way are this changes similar to those undergone by living forms (since neither adaptation nor survival of the fittest aplly).

Answer 2

Evolution is, once upon a time (good way to start a fairy tale isn't it?) there was nothing in existence. Then suddenly this nothing reacted to nothing and exploded and became everything. This is the mythical Big Bang. Then according to evolution lower life forms evolved into more complicate ones (despite the fact that this couldn't happen because it can't explain things like the termite and other similar creatures). Then one day a monkey climbed out of the tree and started walking and evolved into people. And now the other thing about evolution is, they never explain how life started. They will give you a bunch of nonsense about aminos and so forth, but this has never been proven. So that's the end of your fairy tale for today.

Answer 3

Evolution is a theory of life on earth that postulates that all life is related. Somehow, a long time ago, a simple one-celled organism was created. Since then, through zillions of reproduction cycles, one cell became two, two became four, and so multi-celled organisms evolved. Some became plants. Some became animals. Somewhere along the way, some of the animals became mammals. Some of the mammals' brains evolved, their bodies became more adapted to walking upright, and the fifth finger on the hands became an opposable thumb, good for grabbing and holding things. And lo, you have the evolution of man.

Answer 4

Evolution comes about when a species of animal is forced to adapt to their surroundings or die.

For instance: a flock of birds land somewhere new. these birds have large bills for breaking insects open. However, the best insects here live in trees. One of the birds has a slightly thinner beak than the rest and so is able to reach into the trees and get the best bugs. He is healthy, and so attracts a good mate. He passes on his genes of thinner beaks. suddenly, there are more birds with thinner beaks. the other larger beaked birds cannot survive as well and either die out or do not mate. as more and more birds mate with the thinner beaked birds, more of them have the thin beaks, until you have a species of bird adapted to picking bugs out of trees instead of cracking them in the open.

Hope this helps!

Answer 5

We have scientific evidence that at one time, billions of years ago, the world was a round mass of liquid material. As the materiam began cooling the surface began to harden. That was the beginning of land. The earth began to shrink and wrinkle, just like an orange does whan it begins to dry out. The high points of the wrinkles became hills and mountains, water covered the lower places.
In time, through a combination of sunlight and various elements, small one cell animals emerged. These microscopic animals. at some point combined with others to better produce more efficient animals. Through the necessity of finding food and protecting themselves, many many changes took place through the millions of years.
Very very slowly, through many millions of years, animals that might have resembled apes began to walk upright. Many changes had to be made, again through millions of years, to get to the point we're at now.
There are tons of evidence to support the idea of evolution. Darwin discovered that birds and animals cut off from their breed will change to suit he enviroment and food supply. Iguanas are desert animals, but those that are found on Galapagos Island bacame sea creatures, finding food on the ocean floor. Birds with short beaks on the mainland developed long beaks to reach certain seeds found on Galapagos, etc, etc, etc.
There is no end to the evidence. Of course, I'm not going to re-write Darwin's Origin of Species, or the many other good works on the subject, but maybe you'll get some idea from all of this.
Good luck in your studies.

Answer 6

Evolution is:
Since the beginning of time, all of the changes to everything was done by NATURE. Man and other forces might have slowed or speeded up the changes but they were natural changes. There were no spiritual beings involved in any way. No supernatural force made any contributions at all.

Answer 7

Simply put all evolution really says is that life with change and adapt to it's environment. It doesn't really deal with how life started at all like so many christians tend to think it does.

Answer 8

survival for the fittest

overtime, creature develope what they need for survival, nature kill ineficiency, and so on,
human seem to take a different route, we are evoled by the aid of viruses and cartiogenic thing or somewhat like that, most imperfect human can surfive by aid of medicine, so the variety is widened,

Answer 9

Why? Don't you understand what it says in Wikipaedia?

Answer 10

we evolved from fish