what scientific evidence for evolution is there?

Answer 1

The evidence falls into several categories:

fossil evidence - e.g., the fact that fossils always fall in the right stata order; the dating of fossils; the tracing of intermediate forms, (legged whales and seacows, reptile-birds, reptile-mammals, etc.) etc.

molecular evidence - Look up 'molecular clock' (the rate of accumulation of 'typos' in DNA), this pegs when in time two species divereged, and this corresponds perfectly with the fossil record.

genetics - The number of shared genes between species; the fact that this is *quantiably* consistent with the fossil record and molecular clock.

embryology - E.g., legs on snake and dolphin embyos, vestigial gill slits and tails on human embryos, etc.

morphology - atavisms (leg- and hip-bones in whales, leg bones in snakes); vestigial organs (like wisdom teeth, or the useless plantaris muscle in the human calf (used for grasping in the feet by other primates), the tail bone in humans); homologous structures (mammalian ear bones matching reptilian jaw bones; tetrapodism/pentadactilism (the fact that all terrestrial vertebrates have four limbs and five digits on forelimbs); etc.

biogeography (distribution of species on the planet) -

virology and bacteriology -

medicine (such as immunology) -

It would be a huge amount of work to write these things up. The amount of evidence is enormous.

Luckily other people have already written all this up. Please see any of the sources:

Answer 2

gruffalo is right, but this was only an example of what was happening in the galapagos island chain.

the bird in question was a finch, and as Darwin travelled across the islands he noticed that thier were more then a dozen varients of the same finch, in each one the finch had moved to the new island, adapted/evolved to suceed on that island, when Darwin took one finch back to another island, it failed to thrive, on top of that, Darwin decided if they were had just 'adapted' then they would be able to interbreed with each other, he tried to breed various varients with each other but was completly unsucessful, proving that the birds had changed on a genetic level to a place where they were no longer compatable breeding partners, thus proving genetic evolution.

also, have you not seen the fossel record? the fact the chimps are 98% identicle genetically.

Fivetoze, you are so wrong it's not even funny! actually we are in the process of evolution now. scientists have found a new intelligence gene. fifty percent of the population don't have it at all, forty percent have inhereted it from either their mother or their father and ten percent have inhereted it from both parents. in a hundred years more people will have both and the percentage of the population without will be fewer. this is evolution in work. I.E. the introduction of a new gene into a species which improves the survival expectation of the species.

welcome to the twentyfirst century!

Answer 3

Evolution is a theory! Did man evolve from a monkey or did a monkey evolve from a man? Yeah, that's what I thought! There is evidence that Jesus walked the face of this earth, and some people are determined to scientifically prove the bible wrong! Every time scientists have thought they were right in the evolution theory, something has brought up more questions than answers. Some people will even publish lies to cover their research. Hey, they have to justify all those government grants somehow!

Answer 4

All of it.

Its a mathematical certainty. Not all animals have the same number of offspring, some survive to reproduce, some do not. The characteristics of those who survive are passed on to the young. The characteristics that don't help survival are bred out of the population.

Once in a while a mutation or variation comes along that helps survival significantly e.g. an ancestor of the giraffe had a slightly longer neck than its siblings. It could get more leaves and was able to produce more babies, thus the genes were passed along and a higher percentage of proto-giraffes had slightly longer necks. One of their great-great grand kids might have been born with an even longer neck... etc. Most mutations are bad and involve the death of the animal or a reduction in its ability to reproduce and so they are elimated from the population.

It takes many generations and many millions of years for a species to evolve. Little changes add up significantly over time, like compound interest, and occasional mass extinctions or severe conditions can accelerate this by wiping out most of a species and reducing its genetic variety and increasing the number of mutations.

PS Don't listen to fivetoze, Darwin is not the only person on the planet to study or do work on evolution. He, as a Christian, found his own discoveries so disturbing that he resisted publishing them for years. 2000 years is not enough time for significant changes to a species. 20000 isn't even enough, we're talking time periods of more than 100000 years and usually millions. Turtles have been evolving for even longer than us, several million years but their basic design hasn't changed because they are so perfectly adapted to their environments i.e. mutations don't help them survive any better.

Answer 5

Wow. You really got some stupid answers here.

Go to the talk.origins FAQs

There are 2 parts to the study of evolution:

1. The FACT that evolution occurs.
2. The theory of the mechanisms behind the fact.

Evolutionary theory DOES NOT say that man evolved from monkeys. Creationist say that's what science says. Creationists lie a lot.

Answer 6

Read Darwins - Origin of the Species by means of Natural Selection its a fascinating incite into the theories of evolution and has wonderfully classic examples of species which show evidence to the theory of natural selection.
Also you should refer to Alfred Russell Wallace, he wrote a similar piece to Darwin's work, Called the "The tendency of varieties to depart from the original type"
All excellent scientific texts!

Answer 7

A bit too broad to answer properly?
What scientific evidence is there against evolution?

Answer 8

Read Darwins Theory of Evolution. A classic example is on one of the Galapagos Islands (I forget which one.)

Basically, there was this species of bird on this island, and DArwin noticed that even though it was the same bird, one one side of the island, the birds had long thin beaks, and on the other side, they had short, tough little beaks.

Why was this? He wondered. Then he noticed, by observing them extensively, that the birds with long thin beaks used their long thin beaks for fishing, as the supply of fish was plentiful round that side of the island.
Round the other side, where the short beaked variety were, they used their short beaks to break open snail shells.

So Darwin concluded that it was a classic example of the same species developing into two different sub species via the process of evolution. Eg - one lot of birds evolved in a place where long, thin beaks were pretty useless, therefore, the long beaked ones died out, leaving the shorter beaked ones to breed onwards... and vice versa on the other side!

There are many other tests he did regarding his theory. Read his book, it is fascinating, and to my mind, pretty much irrefutable.

Answer 9

In brief

Your Appendix

Its a bit or junk left over by evolution. All living creatures are full of these vestigial organs. If we and all other things were designed by some greater good its pretty shoddy design work.

Answer 10

None. Everyone claims that it is proven, but it is not. One cannot prove a theory by adding more theory. It is scientifically imposible for a living cell to come forth from a crash of a bunch of planets. I mean get real. That's like saying a chiken might hatch from a jelly bean. I know it's a dumb example, but the whole evolution theory is totally dumb. I don't know how so many ignorant people believe it. Everyone out ther who believes it-become scientist and prove it. It doesn't help if it has become a religion.It;'s like a 30 year old believing in fairies.!