What specific experiment could be done to prove evolution as the origin of the species?

Question

Hypothesis: Evolution is the origin of the species. (or something to that effect)
please explain procedures, expected results to prove the hypothesis correct and expected results to prove the hypothesis incorrect. Properly cite any Research that you bring into the experiment.
follow any other parts of the Scientific method that I may have left out.

Answer 1

You can certainly provide a selective pressure on a laboratory raised species of organism, such as fruit flies or other critters, and see if you can induce speciation. This has been done numerous times. However, it is by definition, not 'natural' selection. It is imposed speciation by introducing your own selective pressure.

Here are some references to experiments that have done this exact thing (most of them are not available online unfortunately)

Ahearn, J. N. 1980. Evolution of behavioral reproductive isolation in a laboratory stock of Drosophila silvestris. Experientia. 36:63-64.

Boraas, M. E. 1983. Predator induced evolution in chemostat culture. EOS. Transactions of the American Geophysical Union. 64:1102.

Callaghan, C. A. 1987. Instances of observed speciation. The American Biology Teacher. 49:3436.

Crossley, S. A. 1974. Changes in mating behavior produced by selection for ethological isolation between ebony and vestigial mutants of Drosophilia melanogaster. Evolution. 28:631-647.

del Solar, E. 1966. Sexual isolation caused by selection for positive and negative phototaxis and geotaxis in Drosophila pseudoobscura. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (US). 56:484-487.

Dobzhansky, T. and O. Pavlovsky. 1971. Experimentally created incipient species of Drosophila. Nature. 230:289-292.

Knight, G. R., A. Robertson and C. H. Waddington. 1956. Selection for sexual isolation within a species. Evolution. 10:14-22.

Weinberg, J. R., V. R. Starczak and P. Jora. 1992. Evidence for rapid speciation following a founder event in the laboratory. Evolution. 46:1214-1220.

To study true natural selection however, it would be necessary to follow multiple generations of wild organisms and track any changes in the populations. This could take hundreds or thousands of years and is probably not practical for every species. There are a few species that are showing signs of adaptive evolution at the current time, and these are the subject of more intense scrutiny. One example is the apple maggot, which used to only attack hawthorn plants, but in the last century has switched hosts to attack apple trees. This may well lead to speciation, with two distinct species - one of which attacks hawthorne and the other apples. Another example is reproductive isolation in Culex pipiens mosquitoes (the primary vector of West Nile virus). Different populations of the mosquito have different gut bacteria, and it turns out that the gut bacteria are not compatible. Mosquitoes with one type of gut bacteria cannot successfully interbreed with those with the other variety of gut bacteria. This may also lead to speciation.

McPheron, B. A., D. C. Smith and S. H. Berlocher. 1988. Genetic differentiation between host races of Rhagoletis pomonella. Nature. 336:64-66.

Yen, J. H. and A. R. Barr. 1971. New hypotheses of the cause of cytoplasmic incompatability in Culex pipiens L.

But for additional evidence for proof of evolution, it is better to look at Earth's history as a forensic case. Take an individual species and develop a hypothesis - if evolution were true, what would this creature's paleontological history, skeletal structure, genetic variability, and biogeographical distribution look like? Is the evidence that can be found consistent with the theory of evolution? What inconsistencies are there? Is there any other theory that can account for this evidence?

UPDATE: The gentleman below me is yet another in a long, long line of people who apparently doesn't understand what a scientific theory and a scientific law is. A scientific law is an observed physical phenomenon that always occurs. I.e. things fall down, things at rest tend to stay at rest, or offspring are different from their parents. These are scientific laws. Note that there is absolutely no explanation for any of these events within the law, only a description of the observation. The explanation is the theory: in this case, the theories of gravity, inertia and evolution.

There is indeed a "law" of evolution, and that is that the genetic composition of a population changes over time (offspring are different than their parents). Every piece of evidence gathered so far from a wide variety of fields has supported the theory of evolution as the explanation for this observed 'law'. There is no point at which a theory somehow graduates to become a law. A theory is either upheld (as evolution has been, time and time again), or it is discarded (as spontaneous generation was).

Answer 2

Going forward: start with a species and select for several traits in each new generation. Keep doing it until you have a distinctly different animal (like the webbed feet, double coat, otter tail and instinct to retrieve that my lab has). Compare to a control group without that selective pressure on it. Hint: Pick a species with closely spaced generations.

Looking back: Theorize that if evolution is/has been going on that a sequence of species will have traits that vary over time. Gradually becoming more complex over time. With some traits coming and going due to climatic or predatory selective pressures that change. Go back far enough and even vertibrates wouldn't exist. Go back even further and complex animals wouldn't exist. All the way to single-cell organisms. Then go out and search in old rocks.

Oh, those have both been done.

If a popular alternative hypothesis (creationism) is correct, then nothing on the planet (fossils, rocks, etc) would be older than 6,010 years (2006 less 4004 BC). Makes it hard to explain all those dinosaur bones, other extinct animals and the dating of rocks by radioactive decay and cosmic ray traces that nicely increase with passing time in a highly predictable and measurable way.

Without even using a microscope or mass spectrometer, you can count tree rings on standing trees (bristlecone pines live 4000 years) and preserved dead wood, line up the wet/dry years and get over 8,000 years back counting each and every year.

Which kind of blows Bishop Ussher's timing of the creation of the world of 4004 BC (Sir James Lightfoot improved that calculation to 9 AM Oct 3, 4004 BC) out of the water.

I guess minds are like parachutes, they only work if. . .

Answer 3

and plant life. For example, sterility presents an impassable gulf between man and the animals. Breeding experiments have demonstrated that appearance is no criterion. Man and the chimpanzee may look somewhat similar, have comparable types of muscles and bones; yet the complete inability of man to hybridize with the ape family proves that they are two separate creations and not of the same created “kind.” Although hybridization was once hoped to be the best means of bringing about a new “kind,” in every investigated case of hybridization the mates were always easily identified as being of the same “kind,” such as in the crossing of the horse and the donkey, both of which

Answer 4

This expirement is impossible because evolution is impossible. It is not even true science. Listen to this. Two evolutionist mathmatitions in europe working seperatly from each other decided to determin the probabilaty of the world evolving through evolution. They both determined that the possibilaty was 0. remember they were trying to PROVE evolution with thier calculations and still they both discoverd it could never happen. Evolution is a theory and nothing more "In the begining God created the heaven and the earth"

Answer 5

If there WERE a scientific proof, it would no longer be the "Theory of Evolution", it would be the "Law of Evolution". So the answer should be "unknown" or "indeterminable".