Proof for evolution?

Question

I am a Christian, and I am constantly hearing that there is scientific proof for evolution. Could someone please tell me what that is?

(No theories, anything that has been disproven, or religious attacks)

Answer 1

There isn't any. Even Darwin admitted that his theory did not match with fossil records. He just assumed that the proof would come later.

The modern world of science is filled with people who hold with evolution religiously and teachers who teach the lies that they have been taught. The only way to get at the truth is to rely on your own research and be open to the idea that you are wrong in your ideas. This is called intellectual honesty and is missing from most modern academic life.

Lee Strobel's book "The Case for a Creator" is a great book for believers in evolution who are seeking intellectual honesty to start. Strobel is intellectually honest (former athiest and evolutionist) and the book gives the reader plenty of sources to begin exploring the issue on their own.

Answer 2

Since you asked essentially the same question twice... a repeat of my answer to the "Evidence for evolution" question:

To fully answer this question requires a lot more time and explanation than is typical for Yahoo! Answers.

If you're genuinely interested in exploring this issue - with an open mind, not one uncompromising in its devotion to one point of view - there are many excellent sources for you to find the kind of information you're looking for.

I think that a very good place to start for a layman's introduction to the theory of evolution is the talk.origins FAQ, located here:

http://talkorigins.org/

This site is very informative - but it is oriented specifically to "combat" claims made by literalist Christians, creation scientists, or intelligent design advocates. So it does stray into the political arena just a bit in it's tone - but the science is good.

I used theory, above, deliberately. From your initial question, I suspect that you may be a little confused (as most people are!) about the definitions of the words "proof" and "theory" in a scientific context. In short, a scientific theory is *not* the same thing as what we mean in our daily lives when we say theory. For a more in-depth explanation, Wikipedia has a pretty good page detailing the semantics of it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory

Lastly, I'd like to refer you to an earlier answer I gave to a question about intelligent design and evolution. It's not exactly related, but I think you may find some interesting points:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Assqu7oO5i34qxcqQ2B8o9Dsy6IX?qid=1005121401657

Answer 3

The fossil record. There's literally mountains of it. It shows the progression of species as they evolve. Evolution has even been produced in the laboratory.
There are theories about evolution, but there is also the fact of evolution. Just as there continue to be theories about gravity, but then there's the fact of gravity. And if someone wants to insist gravity doesn't exist simply because we have yet to learn everything there is to know about it, by say, stepping out of a tenth story window - they might float. But the word "plummet" comes to mind.

btw- There is no such thing as a "missing link". Primates and homo sapiens evolved from a common, extinct ancestor and followed different paths in their subsequent evolutions. There is no link because a link isn't necessary.
I wish people would stop bringing it up, because it shows how little they understand the science.

Answer 4

I would like to see proof too.
Unfortunately the scientific method can not be used to test a theory regarding evolution
So really the only evidence we can see, is that each lifeform on the earth, was preceded by it's parent lifeform.
What it boils down to is that evolution is in itself a religion.
It requires a person to have faith that the theory is real.
Evolution is the God.
Again no one has ever seen life evolve from non living matter.
They always say "nature provided" or "nature created".
And we are supposed to accept blindly, this theory>
As one in construction, I find this notion with lol.

Answer 5

There is a lot of evidence for evolution. Rather than get into the bits and pieces, consider a key element, commonly known as "survival of the fittest" or natural selection.

Say you have a population of 1,000 people. Ten of this group, or one percent, has a genetic mutation that makes it immune to a particular air-borne chemical that is lethal to the other 990 when it reaches a certain concentration. If this chemical is rarely found in the air, then the genetic mutation never comes into play and all 1,000 people live happily everafter.

But say this chemical now becomes more highly concentrated in the air/water (pretend that a volcano is now pumping it into the atmosphere). The 10 people with immunity are not affected, but if the concentration reaches a particular level, the remaining 990 will die. (Even at lower concentrations, some percentage of the 990 will die.)

At this point the entire population of 10 people are now resistant to the chemical and, allowing for the rules by which genetic traits are passed onto offspring, it is likely that most of their children will also be immune to the chemical (not all of them, but most).

This is natural selection.

If you think that this is far-fetched, this is how bacteria and viruses become immune to anti-bacterials and anti-virus medications. If there are 10 copies of a virus in our body that are immune to a medication and 990 without that immunity -- a very common situation since viruses mutate so quickly -- the giving the medication will wipe out all or most of the non-immune copies of the virus and leave only or mostly the immune ones. In other words, immune copies of the virus are all that survive, and even though the numbers are down, the surviving virus population is now immune to the medication.

Evolution is really two things: natural selection and genetic mutations. I hope the discussion above gives you reason to believe that natural selection -- "survival of the fittest" -- DOES occur, in fact almost HAS TO occur. That leaves genetic mutations. There is a lot of evidence that genetic mutations are naturally occuring for various reasons:

A) "accidents" or imperfections in transcribing the genetic material from a parent cell to a child cell (this transcription is a fantastically complicated process, and given this and the enormous number of individual components in a DNA molecule that have to be transcribed it is almost inevitable that no transcription is perfect);
B) environmental factors -- like radiation or drugs -- that alter the DNA itself;
C) environmental factors that alter how DNA is copied from parent to child.

Most mutations are have little affect under any circumstance. Some only have an affect if the environment changes for some reason (like the example of the chemical being introduced that is lethal to 99% of the population). A few mutations are so drastic that the person dies of them before the person can have children to pass them to. The rate of mutation is probably pretty low, too, so combined with the fact that few mutations are likely to be both significant AND be passed to offspring, the time between mutations can be long, maybe thousands of years. This is pretty off-putting to most people; when one considers the enormous number of mutations that must have happened to go from, say, a plant to a mammal, and the long period of time between mutations, one is tempted to ask how could so many mutations have happened in the life of the universe much less the time during which life existed on earth.

However, think of this. If takes 1,000 for one "significant" mutation to occur, and it takes a million of these to go from plant to mammal (which is alot given that we're talking about organisms with only a few tens of thousands of genes, many of which are quite similar even between plants and mammals), it would take 1,000 x 1,000,000, or 1,000,000,000 (that's one billion) years to go from plant to mammal. Well guess what? Life has existed on the plant for almost 4 billion years -- enough time to go from plant to mammal four completely separate times!

Finally, being Christian (which I am) and a supporter of evolution are NOT mutually exclusive no matter what you hear. You know the expression "God works in mysterious ways?" Well, what can be more mysterious -- and awesome -- then the slow, methodical way His rules for biology have played out on earth?

Hope this helps.

Answer 6

If you've ever studied biology in college, then you'd get a taste of what microevolution is and its relation to macroevolution (or evolution in terms that laymen understand it). You should really do your own research instead of asking people here. Talking about "proof" and "evolution" hits too many nerves.

Unlike creationism, this isn't propaganda. Microevolution is the reason we have to get flu shots every year, and the reason why there have been disease pandemics over time. (Sorry, I got a Microbiology degree, so know more about microorganisms.) But population drift has been observed over several generations in bird populations that have been isolated on an island from their mainland ancestors.

"Microevolution is the occurrence of small-scale changes in allele frequencies in a population, over a few generations, also known as change at or below the species level.
These changes may be due to several processes: mutation, natural selection, gene flow, and genetic drift.
Population genetics is the branch of biology that provides the mathematical structure for the study of the process of microevolution. Ecological genetics concerns itself with observing microevolution in the wild. Typically, observable instances of evolution are examples of microevolution; for example, bacterial strains that have antibiotic resistance.
Microevolution can be contrasted with macroevolution; which is the occurrence of large-scale changes in gene frequencies, in a population, over a geological time period (i.e. consisting of lots of microevolution). The difference is largely one of approach. Microevolution is reductionist, but macroevolution is holistic. Each approach offers different insights into evolution."

And anyone who says that the missing link hasn't been found hasn't been to a natural history museum or done their research.

Answer 7

Evolution is a very slooooowwwww process, scientist are still trying to figure out the missing link, how did man go from more ape like humanoids to the humanoid of today in such a fast pace. Genetic manipulation is how that occured, the man of today was created from the pre-historic human being which was male/female in one unit. The gods found this planet and it's inhabitants and all the goodies this planet had to offer, commisioned it's genetic scientist to do experiments on the humanoids and make them more functioning to their whims for slavery to help harvest all the natural resources earth has to offer them, each race has it's purpose. So they split the gender (adam/males - eve/females) added some of their DNA to mix and walla you have the humans of today. When you breed you breed for the rulers of this planet, more slaves. Your bodie has programming designed in it to make you do things for the sudo gods. Controlled and manipulated by all the fake religions/fake gods of the world while they do all of this out of site today, they are preparing to be amongst in clear site soon. There is alot more going on deep underground than most would care to know.
All of this is just about physical reality the real key is discovering who you really are as a spirit. Although I dont believe in any religion teachings, as a christian you may find the video below very interesting to answer some of your questions.

Answer 8

Babies of all species evolve from dirt and other stuff.

Babies are conclusive proof evolution is a fact.


Are you referring to evolution or creation? There is no evidence or valid theory to support the idea that anything was created, so if that is the basis for your question, it is illogical. It assumes an event that did not occur. ("creation")

The universe & "life" have always existed and are in a continual state of evolving, as evidenced by babies of any species.

Answer 9

Genetics, you are a near 100% match to chimps. Fossils that show evolutionary progression. We have seem microorganisms evolve. Common traits among species. The fact that it makes sense, and can not be disproven. And many more. But most of all, the fact that god is too ridiculous to even consider. True there is a missing link, but religion does not even have evidence to link, and they have thousands of years to find some.

Answer 10

truly than grant you with 1000 examples from one hundred diverse fields of technological awareness, i am going to easily grant you with my personal common party. It definitively proves human/chimp consumer-friendly ancestry (btw once you've a rebuttal to this i favor to take heed to it). So in accordance to evolution, people and chimps shared a consumer-friendly ancestor about 6 million years in the past. So if it really is real there might want to be similarities in our DNA and there are, yet there is one significant distinction. they have 24 pairs of chromosomes, we've 23. now you won't be able to easily lose a chromosome, the embryo will be non-potential. Deletion of an finished chromosome is deadly. So there are 2 opportunities: a million. A chromosome fusion got here about contained in the human lineage AFTER the chop up from the consumer-friendly ancestor, leaving us with one a lot less pair, or 2. evolution is fake. So if we do have a fused chromosome we'd want to manage to locate it. Chromosomes have markers on the end said as teleomeres, yet when we've a fused chromosome we must have one chromosome with inactive teleomeres contained in the middle the position they don't belong. If we do not locate it, evolution isn't real. seems this is human chromosome #2. this is accessible to pinpoint the precise fusion web site to interior of a dozen base pairs (out of three billion). Human chromosome #2 resulted contained in the head to head fusion of two chromosomes that proceed to be separate in different primates, and they correspond on to chimp chromosomes #12 and #12. the clarification behind this is because they're prepared by length, #a million being the biggest. so as this is it, definitive DNA information that we percentage a consumer-friendly ancestry with chimpanzees. Evolution is reality.