What's your evidence of evolution?

Question

So much of the evidence what might be called Darwinism has been proven faked or manipulated. What's the REAL hard evidence that evolution is a valid theory? I don't mean a finch growing a slightly harder beak, that's environmental adaptation, not evolution. I'm talking about one species evolving into another; a fish to a beaver, or a pig to an ox, a worm to an aardvark, something like that. I'm not trying to be provacative, and I would appreciate serious answers only without the obligitory attacks on "fundamentalists" or Christians.

Answer 1

Unfortunately regardless of the information provided you will continue to ignore it and remove yourself further into the abysmall hole of ignorance to try and protect your blissfull existence where everything you do is someone elses' fault.

A worm doesn't turn into an Aardvark, a fish doesn't turn into a beaver. However serious you meant your question to be, personal "mocking" jibes like that are immature and future removed will allow you to have intelligent answers.

Finally, I want you to look up the progress of evolution through time. You will inevitably come up with a chart that looks like this:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2005/images/ROM_fig1.gif

Once you find one that fits your needs, you will see that there is factual processes found in archeology through the bone formation of dinosaurs - from small fish to bigger swimming dinosaurs, from small lizards to small winged animals.

Trying to get a question answered for you will never teach you anything, doing the research yourself will awaken your mind. Unless you're too much of chicken crap to attempt to find factual scientific information, because it may destroy your world of hypocresy and ignorant lies.

Answer 2

Some people like to assume that because it is called "theory" of evolution, they can decide that it isn't true and espouse other systems of natural selection based more on personal philosophical or spiritual beliefs rather than scientific evidence. Remember, a theory in a scientific notation isn't the same as what the common public assumes it to be. Gravity is still a theory, yet no one is challenging it's teaching in America's schools.

Also, Darwin never said that humans came directly from the other great apes (chimps, gorillas and orangotans), but that we share a common ancestor with these species. This is why over 90% of our genetic material is identical.

Evolution can occur slowly, or in a relatively quick pace. Relative here is in geological terms. The earth is 4.5 billion years old, so something taking a million years or so is still quick. But natural selection and mutations are the two driving forces in evolution.

Take any species, and for the moment don't consider where that species came from. Within that species, with each new birth there's a chance of a mutation occuring that results in the offspring having a slightly different trait. Maybe it's a longer neck or a different stripes pattern. What the mutation is doesn't really matter for this example. If the mutation helps the animal survive into adulthood and allows it to breed (which is what is meant by the phrase "survival of the fittest", contrary to popular opinion of what fitness means), then the mutated trait will be passed on to other members of the species until it becomes the norm rather than the exception. If it isn't useful, the animal dies and the mutation ceases as well. That is evolution in action.

A better known example is the news recently of viruses and bacteria becoming resistant to drugs. There's debate as to whether or not a virus should be considered living, so I will focus on bacteria for now. We have used the same antibiotics for so long that certain strains are becoming resistant to the chemicals. Because they are resistant, they survive while others are killed, and get to reproduce. The strong replace the weak, until eventually every bacteria in the colony is resistant. This is why drug companies like Phizer and Merk have to continually do research, and why if you give your child a shot at the start of the flu season it may not work as well as it did last time.

Evolution can also encompass events such as mass extinctions, and how species evolve to survive after regional or planetary conditions change. Case in point is the explosion of diversity and size of mammals following the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

Answer 3

I'm not going to get into an evidenciary debate on this, but I just wanted to correct you. Environmental adaptation *is* evolution. The animal best adapted to his environment flourished and reproduced - passing those genetics on to future generations. The strongest, or fittest, was selected to survive. This is one of the signs of evolution.

If you want serious and correct answers to your query, the best thing that you can do is get a few scientifically based non-biased evolution textbooks. None that are published by Christian groups and none that are published by anti-christian groups. The theory and supporting evidence are far too lengthy for anyone to complete here in Yahoo! answers. I can sit here and scream archaeopteryx or australopithecine until the cows come home, but if you don't have the scientific, genetic, or historical background to understand why a pig doesn't evolve into an ox, then it won't do any good. And, you'll have to have an open mind. If you simply accept the rhetoric and misinformation that says evolution states that a monkey turned into a human or a worm into an aardvark, then you'll never be able to comprehend how evolution really works. Good luck to you. : )

Answer 4

You say that a finch growing a harder beak is an environmental adaptation and not evidence of evolution. Let's try stretching this out over millennia. So the finch's beak gets harder and harder with each generation, then it stars using its beak to dig worms out of tougher and tougher places, then it starts using its feet to dig too and it grows harder toenails and stronger legs, then it starts finding worms its gizzard cant handle, so it grows a bigger gizzard or a hook starts to form on its beak so it can rip and tear. All the while, small food is becoming scarce, so the finches that haven't made these adaptations start to die off and only the ones that have mutated live. I'll be damned, we have a new animal here. That is certainly not the finch we started with. Evolution is simply environmental adaptation propagated and compounded over a very long period of time. The fact that environmental adaptation occurs is evidence of evolution.

Here's another one. Your appendix is evidence for evolution. It's a vestigial organ. It's completely useless to you, yet it's still there. So you must ask, why was it there in the first place? Why does th human body have this organ here? It must have done something at some point. Turns out, primitive humans did not eat so much meat. In fact they used to eat a lot of plant matter. In order to get nutrition from plant matter, it requires a lot of digestion and regrinding. That's why cows have four stomachs. Humans used to have two. The appendix was one of them, but as the human diet changed, it stopped being necessary, and with each generation, it got less and less exercises and began to shrink away until just a small organ hanging off your duodenum was left. Eventually, it will go away completely.

Lets go back to the finches. Lets say a population of finches start living in two separate places. In one, the worms are big and the finch needs to become like the one I talked about above. In the other, the worms all died out, so the finch needs to eat something else. The finch starts eating flower pollen. So its beak grows longer instead of harder so it can get deep into the flowers. It also gets smaller so it can land on the flowers. We started with the same finch, but now we have to distinctly different birds.

That is evolution. Species changing themselves to adapt to their situations. Not fish becoming beavers and such.

Answer 5

sorry, if there is a substantial difference for you between what you call environmental adaptation and evolution you will never really understand the theory of evolution.
As far a evidence goes, people have tried to prove or disprove evolution for quite a while now. So far nobody has found any evidence which disproved it. So it is still a valid theory. Just read more about it (preferably in serious text books or peer reviewed journals) and you will find more evidence than I could possibly ennumerate here.

Answer 6

Nice answer solrium. As has been said before "The truth IS out there"

A few more links you may, or may not have seen. There is some amazing work going on in China at the moment, which has been known as a fossil hot bed for many years, but the political situation has slowed things down a bit.

But, as you say, you can't tell a fool he's a fool. That's why he's a fool in the first place.

Adam
You are correct in saying that Piltdown man was a fraud. The chief suspect was a French Catholic priest. As this "fossil" was found with a "cricket bat", it is uncertain whether he was attacking evolutionary science or the English.

"Nebraska man" was a bloomer, but very swiftly retracted by science, but that is what good science does. It is only the Creationists who still try to pretend that science still thinks it was a human fossil. In fact, the similarity between pig and anthropoid teeth that caused the mistake in the first place is EVIDENCE of evolution, not refutation.
http://members.cox.net/ardipithecus/evol/lies/lie020.html

Answer 7

animals don't suddenly change from a fish to a beaver they do it very slowly over millions of years so what might seem like a very small change is actually a step of evolution. Environmental adaptation is evolution, the finch is evolving a harder beak to make it more capable of getting food and evolving beyond another bird. Just like humans evolved to be cleverer than all other animals

Answer 8

The entire fossil record proves evolution. I'd also suggest that you review Darwin's original work on the finches of the Galapagos islands, where several different types of finches each adapted (yes, evolved) to take advantage of a particular niche in the food chain.

Your examples are ridiculous. Evolution is a process that takes millennia; you can't possibly observe evolution in your lifetime (except perhaps among fruit flies and bacteria).

Answer 9

The evidence has been proven fake and manipulated??? could it be that those who "proved" that it was fake didn't really know what they were talking about???

Environmental adaptation is evolution....

Also species evolve from common ancestors...not from one thing into another...hence we don't come from monkeys but humans and monkeys come from common ancestors....

why do people insist on attacking evolution when they have no concept of evolution at all....

Answer 10

Environmental adaption IS part of evolution. The characteristics that proved to be most useful are bred into the next generation by "survival of the fittest."

Thanks for answering your own question!

Most modern-day species evolved from common ancestors. You no longer see the common ancestor because you see the species that descended from them/it through natural selection.

If you're talking about evidence being "faked or manipulated," please give citations or examples. Anything else comes across as pure opinions or your belief system. I hope you're not thinking of "Piltdown Man," since there have been lots of other fossils found since.