What evidence is there for evolution as opposed to creationism?

Question

http://www.talkorigins.org/

For all who say what evidence see above

Incidently the free Bible I got in the mail today is only the New Testement, but the Qur'an did come, so after Dinner I'm going to read the Islamic account. I'll have to go online to read Genesis.

So just so you know, I'm going to read the creationist side of the account tonight.

Answer 1

You are the biggest proof of evolution , what else you need ?

Answer 2

Ok, seriously... you're not going to believe the creationist theory? Some being just went like *BAM* and all of a sudden there was stuff everywhere!??! I don't bloody well think so... Life began when a random combination of molecules (today known as DNA and RNA) formed together to create various strands of protein... Obviously, humans have evolved - simply take into effect the 6-finger gene... the gene to have 6-fingers per hand is actually a dominant trait, rather than recessive... however, humans have evolved and the biological powers have more or less ruled that having 5 fingers per hand is much more productive than having 6 fingers... Also, look towards the DNA side of things, where as the closely related geneology between humans and apes... with the chromosomes being so closely related and very similar with one another, it aids in providing evidence for evolution. Fossils, the tar sands, carbon dating, all help prove that evolution existed... you cannot believe that we existed at the same time as the million other forms of the homo- beings... evolution must have taken place... Next time you're sitting there relaxing, look at the floor or table or something, and then be like "let there be -something-" and see if you conjure something magically out of nothingness... Or just like my co-worker/friend says "we didn't evolve... we weren't created... we're just an alien experiment gone wrong!"

Ok, now to more or less bash the other side of the coin... not creationism itself, however the theory behind it and where the concept of God comes from... religion was started back thousands of years ago not as a belief with proof to back it up... but rather as a way to control the masses... religion has not only been the root cause, but in the medieval ages prevented, each and every single war and dispute in the history of man... WWII - war of Germans against Jews... perfect example...

Back to creationism versus evolution... evolution has scientific evidence to support the theory, whereas creationism has a book written by man... man makes mistakes, and don't forget who wrote the bible... MAN...

thank you if anyone actually read that whole thing, however my opinion has been expressed and i hope that everyone takes it into consideration...

Answer 3

Ok, I think I figured out what all you evolutionist are saying. 16 billion years ago, there was nothing. And then nothing went bang. And for billions of years, the earth was a molten ball, and rain fell on the earth and cooled it off. The rain gathered into little ponds where amino acids somehow formed, and life began to grow. These amino acid formed proteins, and out of this came our ancestors.

There's a few flaws with this theory. Evolutionary scientist say there was no oxygen in the early atmosphere, because oxygen would oxidize these early amino acids and destroy them. So there could be no oxygen to alow these amino acids to develop. But there's a problem with this theory. If there is no oxygen, there's no ozone layer, ozone is a molecule containg three atoms of oxygen. With no ozone layer, radiation from the sun would destoy all life on earth.

Also with amino acids; if you combine two amino acids, you get one dipeptide(protein) and a molecule of water. This reaction is reversable. If you combine a dipeptide with a molecule of water, you get two amino acids. There's a law in chemistry that says if you have a reversable chemical reaction, it will never go in the direction to form something that is already in abundance. In this case, two amino acids will never form a dipeptide and more water in a pond.

The more I study biology and chemistry, the more I believe God created everything by His word.

Answer 4

Dah! The evidence IS the bible. God wrote it and that is all the evidence you should need. Believing is evidence enough. Once you believe, you don't need evidence like proof, you just KNOW it's true because you know in your heart God is real. So why mess with evidence, facts, scientific observation and application when all you need to do is get on your knees and say: baby Jesus, I know you didn't make all these animals millions of years before you came to see us, why are these scientists trying to make up stories just to put you down!!!? They will all go to hell. I know because baby jesus told me that last night, he said evolution is a lie, I made oil from creatures, diamonds from coal, petrified wood and dinosaurs and millions of life forms big and small who roamed the earth only several thousand years ago, right after the earth cooled. That's what he told me. Who are you to say I need evidence? the proof is in the jesus worship.

Answer 5

Why nor both? Isn't it possible for God to have created us by evolution, guiding the whole process along. I am Catholic and I took Rite of Christian Initian for Adults at my Catholic church. My teacher said, "It says in Genesis that God created man in his own image but he didn't say how long it took." and he also said that the story of Adam and Eve is not to be taken literally but to make a point through telling a story. This makes a lot more sense to me than trying to believe how God could form clay into the sahpe pf a man and then blow through it's nostrils and suddenly the clay becomes flesh and the man comes to life. Of course the first humans had belly buttons.

Answer 6

Science is our way of quantifying the natural world. What we "know" is nothing more than what we assume, sense and have experience in...

Snakes have no ears, does this mean in a snake's universe sound does not exist?

Answer 7

Evolution can be observed. By the way, that website that little_morphing_annie recommended is really funny. Everyone should check it out (the first answer).

Answer 8

Go Jim Go! There is only light Jim! You have never experienced anything apart from your own mind!

Answer 9

http://www.harunyahya.com/articles/70the... read and see...I dare ya.......

Answer 10

Here's a little of it:

Why we know that all species are related by common descent:

o Evolution occurs today - We can observe it happening. New strains of viruses, e.g. the influenza virus, are a good example. Not even creationists deny this.

o There is no reason to doubt that evolution has always occurred.

o The fossil record shows that living organisms constantly changed over the entire history of life on Earth, consistent with evolution.

o The fossil record shows species arising, diversifying and going extinct, as would be expected if evolution was occurring.

o Evolution predicts that the fossil record will show more differences from the today's flora and fauna the further back we look in time, and this is indeed what is found.

o If evolution is true then we should find that almost all fossil species which have become extinct are not direct ancestors of extant species, and this is indeed what we find.

o Geographically isolated locations - e.g. islands and lakes - have many unique species, as would be expected if the original species evolved and diversified in isolation.

o Isolated oceanic islands have plants and birds but no indigenous amphibians or large mammals, even though these would thrive there if they were introduced. Only those species which could travel by air or water, and evolve there, are observed as indigenous species.

o Isolated lakes have the same kind of unique and diverse set of flora and fauna as isolated islands, which is to be expected if the ancestral species evolved and diversified there.

o Evolution predicts that new species will only appear geographically close to their ancestral species in the fossil record, unless there is a great deal of mobility e.g. species which can fly, or if continental drift has carried them. This is what we find.

o Evolution predicts that closely related species will be close geographically, even if evolution has adapted them to different environments, and this is indeed what we find - e.g. the pineapple family inhabit many different habitats but only in the American tropics and not in other tropical parts of the world.

o Evolution confirms other, independent scientific theories, e.g. continental drift, which in turn are supported by yet other independent forms of evidence. This would not be expected if the theory of evolution were false.

o Evolution predicts that biogeography must be consistent with a common ancestor, and this is what we find - e.g. marsupials are found in Australia and South America, so the earliest marsupial fossils must be found in rock strata formed before these landmasses separated, and this is indeed what we find. Moreover, evolutionary theory predicted marsupial fossils in Antarctica for the same reason, even though no marsupials live in Antarctica today, and that is exactly what was found.

o Evolution predicts the existence of transitional fossils, and many have been found.

o If common descent is true, then we should always find fossils in younger rocks than their ancestors, never older, and that is what we find.

o Evolution predicts that organisms from one group will never breed organisms of a different group, e.g. a dog giving birth to a cat, and this is indeed what we find.

o With genetic mutation and inheritance, evolution is inevitable. No-one has ever found or even proposed a mechanism to limit evolution.

o Evolution predicts that genes and their products diverge as species evolve, accumulating greater differences between more widely separated species, and this is exactly what we see.

o Different continents have different flora and fauna in the same kind of habitat - As would be expected if they evolved there.

o Living and extinct species fit a statistically valid phylogenetic tree, which shows that they are related by common descent, just as a family tree shows how members of a family are related.

o The chirality of DNA, RNA and proteins is the same in all living organisms, despite there being 15 other equally valid possibilities. This is consistent with common descent.

o All living organisms use DNA and RNA for genetic information, never a different genetic material, as expected if they share a common ancestor.

o All living organisms use only 4 nucleosides out of hundreds of equally likely possibilities, as expected if they share a common ancestor.

o All living organisms use the same 22 amino acids out of a possible 390 naturally occurring types, as expected if they share a common ancestor.

o The genetic code is universal, with only minor differences, and those differences only between major taxonomic groups (e.g. between plants and vertebrates). Evolution predicts that no major differences exist within groups because such a major mutation would be lethal, and this is what we find.

o All known species share the same energy storage molecule, ATP, as expected if they share a common ancestor.

o Vestigial features are common in living organisms, for example wings in flightless species, eyes in species which live in permanent darkness, a pelvis in pythons, vestigial legs beneath the skin in lizards, sexual organs in organisms which reprduce asexually and the coccyx in humans. All are predictions of evolutionary theory.

o Living organisms display numerous atavisms, i.e. characters of remote ancestors not observed in parents or recent ancestors. All are consistent with evolutionary theory. There are many cases of whales being found with hindlimbs, some cases of human children born with tails and so on.

o Convergent evolution: We find many cases of fundamentally very different species of animals with similar features in the same environment, e.g. fins in sharks and whales, as expected if they evolved through widely separated evolutionary pathways.

o The embryological development of an organism leads to testable predictions about its evolutionary origin, and when tested these are found to be true, e.g. fossils showing evolution of reptilian jaw bones and mammalian ear bones from the same ancestral structures.

o Embryological structures reveal their evolutionary origins, e.g. gill pouches in human embryos, limb buds in snakes and legless lizards, hind limbs in whale embryos, the tail in human embryos.

o Evolutionary theory predicts parahomology - i.e. similarity in structure despite differences in function. There is no particular reason to suppose that fins in whales, arms in humans and wings in birds will have similar bone structure unless they are all derived from a common ancestral structure by evolution, since a very large number of other structures would do the same job equally well or better.

o Evolutionary theory predicts suboptimal functions and structures, and this is what we find. Human anatomy shares the same tube for both respiration and ingestion, when separate systems would be a better 'design'. The mammalian eye has an inverted retina and therefore has a blind spot, unlike that of cephalopods. This is a phenomenon which is expected from an undirected natural process, i.e. evolution.

o Evolutionary theory accounts for genetic sub-optimality - e.g. the single-celled organism Paramecium caudatum has 45 times as much genetic material as another almost identical species, Paramecium aurelia, and 3 times as much as humans, even though this is clearly not necessary for its existence.

o Molecular sequences of ubiquitous genes have high functional redundancy. This means that where a gene performs the same function in all known species, it always has the same or closely similar sequence in every species, despite the fact that a very large number of other possible sequences would be functionally equivalent. There is no particular reason for this unless all species are related by common descent.

o Evolution predicts that evolutionary change in the fossil record should be broadly consistent with the rate of mutations observed in species today, and this is what we find. For example, the evolutionary divergence of chimpanzees and humans from a common ancestor of around 6 million years ago gives an estimate of 2 x 10^-8 base substitutions per site per year. Observed rates are between 1 and 5 x 10^-8 per year, a very good match with the prediction of evolutionary theory.

o Observed rates of mutation easily account for the observed differences between species as diverse as mice, chimpanzees and humans in the time frames indicated by the fossil record - In other words, consistent with evolution.

Every single one of these different and independent forms of evidence is supported by dozens, hundreds or thousands of individual observations. They all make sense according to evolutionary theory. None of them make any particular sense if you suppose that living organisms are *not* related by common descent. Moreover, unlike religious beliefs such as 'Intelligent Design' they are all falsifiable, and are therefore valid forms of scientific evidence.

Finally, there is the philosophical argument: It is utterly inconceivable that the complexity and organisation inherent in living organisms could just exist from nothing, and this is the fatal flaw of any concept of a designer: If you argue that life requires a designer, then the designer would have to already exist, with the complexity and intelligence necessary to design living organisms... but then you have contradicted your argument by asserting that complexity does not in fact need a designer – You’re saying it *can* just exist without a designer. Any argument which posits an inevident designer only raises a bigger question than it answers, and ends up with the logical fallacies of either infinite regression or disproving its own premise.

The only alternative, then, is that complexity and organisation arise from simplicity and chaos by the operation of unthinking, undirected natural processes. In the case of living organisms, this means evolution, and the truth of this fact is shown by such a vast amount of evidence that the rejection of evolution can only be accounted for by ignorance of the facts or complete dishonesty.