If Evolution exist, then why aren't the animals and plants evolving into something greater now?

Question

Explain your theory as thorough as you can.

Answer 1

They are. But it takes thousands or millions of years; did you expect to notice a difference week-to-week?

Answer 2

Because evolution is primarily a study of the history of life, statistical analyses of evolution are plagued by having to assume the many conditions that were extant during those long gone eras. Rates of mutations, the contents of the "original DNA," and environmental conditions -- all these affect the rate and direction of the changes in morphology. And these are all unknowns.

From a secular view, one must never ask what the likelihood is that a specific set of mutations will occur to produce a specific animal. This would imply a direction to evolution, and basic to all Darwinian theories of evolution is the assumption that evolution has no direction. The induced changes, and hence the new morphologies, are totally random. The challenges presented by the environment determine which will survive to produce the new generations and which will perish.

Randomness cannot have been the driving force behind the success of life. Our understanding of statistics and molecular biology clearly supports the notion that there must have been a direction behind the success of life.

Answer 3

They ARE. (There are several people who said this, this is the correct answer.)

Evolution does not stop, but it is *very* slow. It takes hundreds to thousands of generations. (For JenL who said "apes and monkeys are thousands of years old" ... try *millions* of years old! C'mon, JenL, even if you don't believe the theory, you know at least *that* much about what the theory says, don't you? In another several million years, who knows what they will look like.)

Have you ever seen a redwood tree grow? Of course not ... even if you lived your entire life in a house sitting next to a redwood tree, its growth is far too slow for you ever to see a change to its height in your lifetime. But would you therefore conclude that it is not growing? Of course not.

Evolution makes redwood tree growth look like a rocket.

Or to put it another way ... to expect to see the effects of evolution on animals and plants over the last few thousand years ... is like expecting to see the effects of development of your child over the last few minutes. If you can't see a change in your child over the course of 5 or 6 minutes, do you conclude that your child has "stopped growing"???

----- P.S. -----

Watch out with that phrase "evolve into something greater." That word 'greater' is a bad habit that scientists dropped in the 1800's carried over from the arrogant idea that humans are "greater" than other animals. Morally, intellectually that may be true (although we often don't act that way). But from a purely *biological* point of view, no creature is "greater" than another. Some animals are more *complex* than others, or *bigger*, or *smarter* ... but evolution doesn't always go in these directions ... sometimes it evolves in the direction of less complex, smaller, or less smart.

So the word 'greater' comes from the fallacy that evolution has a consistent *direction*. It doesn't.

Answer 4

It's based on the existence of 'ecological niches'. An ecological niche is a sort of evolutionary position in the environment, a particularly effective role that a life form can play. Most life forms on Earth fit into certain ecological niches, for example, grass fits the ecological niche of 'hardy ground cover plant', while an eagle fits the cological niche of 'large flying predator'. Ecological niches are based somewhat on the basic environment (temperature, humidity, etc), but in most places you find quite a few standard ones in existence.

The reason all life forms don't evolve towards being intelligent species such as humans is that teach one already fits its ecological niche fairly well, and for the most part it will evolve to fit that niche better rather than split into a new species that fits some other niche (although this of course does happen once in a while). If a certain species were to go extinct all of a sudden, leaving its niche empty, then something else would probably quickly evolve to fit it, NOT evolve towards intelligence. So dumb, slow things such as plants may seem not very successful, but they are very successful at effectively filling their ecological niche and remaining in existence, and so they stay that way. Evolution does not have any particular 'goal' in mind, it just reinforces effective genotypes and gets rid of ineffective ones.

Answer 5

Evolution takes thousands of generations to be observed. Stop trying to put the universe into a HUMAN time frame. If you believe in god, stop trying to force him into a calendar that was made by men.

And evolution HAS been observed. There is a species of moth that PRIOR to the industrial revolution in England was white with some black markings - they would gather on trees that have white bark. When factories started using tons fo coal on a daily basis to power their machines, the soot would coat trees (and just about everything else). The moths that were primarily white were easy pickings for birds and those who are mostly black would survive... and today there are TWO species of moths that are from the same original family! The originals still gather on white surfaces (and use the sides of white stucco covered houses as there are fewer trees) and the others gather on black surfaces.

The two species do NOT cross breed and are considered SEPARATE species - an evolutionary process caused by a change in their living conditions.

And there are species of domestic animals that we have "created" through selective breeding - modern farm chickens can't survive long in the wild because they are simply unable to move fast enough to avoid predators and we've bred them natural color out of them.

Answer 6

Evolution is only "natural selection" The strong and best suited to their environment live to breed and the unsuited and weakest don't.
Look at nature all species have mating rituals,Males battle it out with the winner getting to procreate.
The best example of "evolution " are the dogs all breeds of dogs have a common ancestor.
Livestock are selectively bred to create larger meat carcasses and more milk production.
I think basically only man is capable of adapting readily to survive in all climate conditions.

Answer 7

Rather than trying to get an answer from Yahoo Answers or from conjecture (which your question is based upon), why not do some reading on the theory of evolution? Many people have formed an opinion on the topic without ever reading the theory, and sadly, given your question, my hunch is that you are one of those. Read, learn, and then decide.

Answer 8

They ARE evolving, but it is subtle and in most animals takes a long time. If you lived a few hundred years the changes that produce evolution would be more obvious to you.

Answer 9

They are, evolution takes centuries to make small changes. There is a limited amount of time for us to see the minute changes that have occurred, thus we dismiss what we cannot visualize.

Answer 10

we are, we just cant see it
you have to remember, evolution happened over millions of years, and we are only living for about 100 of it, thats not very long! we wont actually see, in our life time, the changes that the earth goes through

Answer 11

Darwin said, :There are many key points missing that are needed in order to prove evolution".
The missing link fossils, which are also known as the transitional species have never been found.