For those who believe in Evolution, can you back it up?

Question

I mean, the Archeoptyrex isn't enough evidence for me that dinosaurs evolved into birds. It may have just been some weird animal like the platypus. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if a 5000 years from now, they go extinct and scientist pick up a platypus fossil and claim that ducks evolved into beavers. Also tell me how creatures who haven't gone extinct for millions of years, like the celeocanth haven't evolved one teeny bit. Give me genuine proof and tell why the theory of Creationism or Intelligent Design aren't better than your theory of Evoltution.

No crap answers ok? Answer my question about the platypus and the celeocanth.

P.S. TEll me how cells bond. THey had to if single celled organisms started all life. Be you can't answer that! lol.

Answer 1

too bad no one can actually answer your question with -yes- by the way i like what you said about the beaver duck thing, pretty neat.

Answer 2

OK, I'll answer your question. 5000 years from now, scientists will not be saying ducks evolved from beavers because if they do manage to find a fossilized platypus, they have a much better chance of finding ducks and beavers also - in which case, they will know that they lived at the same time.

The Celeocanth hasn't changed because it doesn't need to. It's environment has not changed significantly in the last few million years for it to bother changing. Environmental changes often fuel evolutionary changes.

Let's suppose we through out evolution. Can creationism or intelligent design give modern medicine the same major advances it got under evolution? Remember, we're talking about medications and vaccines - most likely one you've taken. Since creationism and ID really have NO theory to work with, they will produce nothing. We'd be much worse off today without evolutionary theory - a lot of us would probably be dead.

Answer 3

Quite a tall order.

Evolution is the correct theory because thousands of scientests have worked their entire lives proving it to be true. I will outline some of the general principles they have agreed upon and the methods they used, if you doubt, I'm sure you can find the original research (Science is nice and transparent that way)


Scientest have determined that, millions of years ago, the intense conditions on the still cooling earth provided the conditions for "Life" to form. At this time, "life" was just a chance meeting of a few molecules that was able to reproduce itself (and has been faithfully recreated in laboratories). As time went on, "life" added new parts until it became what we would recognize now as a single celled organism (visible to anyone with pond water and a microscope)

This is where things get interesting. As the single celled organisims continued to reproduce, their would occasionally be anomalies in the new lifeform created. Some of these mutations did not help the organism, but the ones that did allowe the organism to adapt and change. However, these changes did not occur uniformally, a cell in one place might have a completly different mutation from a cell in another (creating the basic foundation for species)

Over a long period of time, cells combined to create what we would easily be able to identify as sea creatures, but not any on earth now (they are identifiable in the fossil record) these creatures were unable to move onto land due to a lack of an ozone layer (to keep out ultraviolet rays) and an inablilty to move about on land.

Eventually, one of the major branches of species (plants) found a way to adapt and use the harsh ultraviolet rays on land and eventually created an atmosphere in which the newly forming amphibious animals could survive.

After that, things might start looking more familiar. The original land animals branched out into many forms of reptiles (some developed mutations which allowed basic gliding, a chance occurance which would eventually mainfest itself fully in birds) but only the smaller mammals would surive the large metor (which, scientests have determined, hit around Mexico or Central America)

The smaller mammals continued to break down into more and more speices. One of those was the common ancestors of us and monkeys (not monkeys themselves) the ancestors of this speices would also branch off, some would become chimps, others would be gorrillas, and one would make a speices self aware enough to figure the whole thing out.

However, some have been doubting this interpertation due to another unique creation of ours, religion. Religion was also once used to explain everything from why it rained to where flowers came from. Science has had a long tough crawl agianst the religious devotees who fought the explanations that we now take for granted as true (percipitation and germination respectivly)

So my question to you is: what makes you different from the millions of fundamentalists who have been proved wrong by science in the past. If you can't find an answer, then you might as well abandon all the science and go live out in the woods.

Answer 4

Well, for one thing, they aren't better because there is NO ******* EVIDENCE BACKING THEM UP, whereas you simply dismiss all the evidence behind evolution because you don't want to believe it.

The problem is not with evolution. It is with you. There isn't even a way to *find* evidence to back up Creationism or Intelligent Design, because it all depends on a divine power creating everything without leaving any sort of mark.

Why the hell do you care so much what we believe? Intelligent Design will not be taught in public schools, because you simply cannot deny that it is religious in nature and has nothing to do with real science-- no scientific method was used in theorizing it.

As for evidence of Evolution, try genetic similarities between apes and humans along with behavioral similarities-- chimpanzees have been known to use tools, even. Further... well, remember the recent deadly flu going about? It was such a problem because it EVOLVED mid-season into something deadlier than the normal flu-- and the vaccination no longer worked.

That was evolution on a microbiological scale right there. There's also Darwin's finches, the moths that evolved to escape the sight of predatory birds...

As for creatures like the great white shark or the crocodile, which have not changed much since their mostrous ancestors were alive (they got smaller, but that's about it), they are perfectly suited to their environment-- they got dealt an excellent hand in evolution and became top predators quickly-- because they were perfectly suited to aquatic and amphibious environments, respectively. Creatures don't evolve unless they need to.

Answer 5

If you want genuine proof, why are you asking us? Go look it up. Get answers from people who are actually working on it. As for creatures that haven't gone extinct and haven't evolved, good for them. They are well suited for the conditions they've lived in and haven't needed to evolve. Taking the paraphrase of evolution as "Survival of the fittest," it stands to reason that as long as the celeocanth is fit, it will continue to survive.

Answer 6

Good man. Will the great Jim Darwin speak up? That dude needs to be confronted. Jimmy boy is on line... so if he does not respond... he is a hypocrite and coward.

Answer 7

There is a common misunderstanding about evolution which must be addressed first:

Evolution is a fact, because we can see it happening. For example, every time a new strain of the influenza virus appears, it is genetically different from previous strains. This genetic change *is* evolution, by definition, simply because that's what we call it. That's why evolution is a fact. Even creationists accept this. When people say that evolution is 'only a theory', what they're really thinking about is common descent.

'Common descent' is the theory that all living and extinct organisms on Earth are related by reproduction, in the same way that members of a human family are related to each other by reproduction. Although we know that evolution is a fact, because we observe it happening every day, this in itself does not prove that *common descent* is true. For that, we need other evidence.

People sometimes question the validity of evidence for evolution, saying "How can you know this is true, if you weren't there to see it?" It is certainly true that humans were not around for most of the last 4 billion years or so, to witness first hand the origin of living organisms. However, many crimes also go unwitnessed, and we still feel confident enough about deducing what happened from the evidence available later, that a person's life or freedom can be spared or forfeited in a court of law on the strength of it. So, the lack of eyewitness testimony is not a valid objection to the argument for evolution.

So, here is some of the evidence for evolution and common descent:

o Evolution is observed to occur today - e.g. new strains of viruses. Even creationists don't deny this.

o There no reason to doubt that evolution has always occurred.

o There is no evidence for any mechanism limiting genetic change.

o The fossil record show constant change throughout the history of life, as would necessarily be the case if evolution was always occurring.

o The fossil record shows species arising, diversifying and then going extinct, as would be expected if evolution was occurring.

o The fossil record shows more differences from today's flora and fauna the further back we look in time, as would be expected if evolution always occurred.

o Geographically isolated places (e.g. islands) have many unique species, as would be expected if ancestral species arrived and evolved there.

o Isolated islands almost always have plants and birds but no indigenous amphibians or large mammals, even though the habitat would support them. This is exactly what you would expect if species could only arrive on islands by air or sea, rather than being put in place by a creator, who could have introduced any species anywhere he liked.

o The fossil record shows that new species appear geographically close to similar species, rather than in arbitrary locations, which is what you would expect if one evolved from the other.

o The fossil record shows that similar species inhabiting different environments tend to be close geographically, which is what you would expect if one ancestral species evolved and diversified into different habitats in one area - the pineapple family of species are a good example, being found in different habitats in the American tropics but not in other tropical parts of the world.

o When the fossil record is compared with other, independent scientific theories, e.g. plate tectonics, the results are consistent with evolution having taken place - e.g. species in South America and Africa are more similar the further back we look in time, which is what would be expected after the two continents were separated by plate tectonics and species on each side evolved independently since that time.

o Evolution predicts that biogeography must be consistent with a common ancestor, and this is what we find - e.g. marsupials are found in Australia and South America, so the earliest marsupial fossils must be found in rock strata formed before these landmasses separated, and this is indeed what we find. Moreover, evolutionary theory predicted marsupial fossils in Antarctica for the same reason, even though no marsupials live in Antarctica today, and that is exactly what was found.

o Many 'transitional fossils' have been found, illustrating the common origins of different groups of organisms.

o We never find fossils in rocks which are older than their presumed ancestors - the classic example is that we never find rabbits in the Pre-Cambrian (because they could not exist before the earliest mammals, which were the ancestors of rabbits).

o Organisms never breed offspring of a different group, e.g. a dog born from a cat. This is to be expected if evolution is true, since it would be inconceivable, according to the theory of evolution, for many hundreds of thousands of genetic changes to happen all at once and produce a viable organism - especially not matching one that already exists.

o Different continents often have different species in the same kind of habitat - e.g. the ostrich, emu and rhea, which are all large flightless birds living on grassy plains but on different continents. This is what would be expected if they each evolved independently to suit that particular habitat.

o Evolution predicts that genes and their products diverge as species evolve, accumulating greater differences between more widely separated species, and this is exactly what we see.

o Living and extinct species fit a statistically valid phylogenetic tree - Like a family tree for people, but immensely larger. This would be necessarily true if they are all related by common descent, but not expected if they are independently designed and created.

o The chirality of DNA, RNA and proteins is the same in all living organisms. This is to be expected if they all share a common ancestor, but not necessarily otherwise.

o All living organisms use DNA and RNA, never a different genetic material, which would necessarily be true if they all evolved from a common ancestor which itself used DNA and RNA.

o All living organisms use only 4 nucleosides out of hundreds of possible molecules, which would be expected if they all shared a common ancestor.

o All living organisms use the same 22 amino acids out of 390 possible choices, as would be expected if they shared a common ancestor.

o The genetic code is universal, with only minor differences, and those differences only between major groups e.g. plants and vertebrates. This is to be expected if they all evolved from a common ancestor, since any fundamental change in the code of an existing species would be extremely unlikely to produce viable offspring. However, there would be no particular reason to expect this if all species were created independently.

o All known species share the same energy storage molecule, ATP, as would be expected if they share a common ancestor.

o Vestigial features are common in living organisms, e.g. wings in flightless species, eyes in species which live in permanent darkness, a pelvis in pythons, vestigial legs beneath the skin in lizards, sexual organs in organisms which reproduce asexually and the coccyx in humans. This would be expected if species are the product of unthinking, undirected evolution, but not if they are the product of an intelligent designer.

o Living organisms display numerous atavisms, e.g. children born with tails, which is what we would expect if species still carry the genes which coded for the fully formed and functional organ in an ancestral species from which they evolved.

o We see fundamentally very different species of organisms with similar features in the same environment, e.g. sharks and whales both occupying the same environmental niche. This is to be expected if they evolved through widely separated evolutionary pathways to suit the same habitat.

o Observation of the embryological development of animals leads to testable predictions of their evolutionary origins.

o Parahomology is the similarity in structure of living organisms despite differences in function. Evolution accounts for parahomology - e.g. the ear bones of mammals can be seen to have evolved from the jaw bones of reptiles.

o Living organisms have many suboptimal functions and structures, e.g. the blind spot in the mammalian eye and the use of the same tube for both ingestion and respiration (the throat). This is to be expected if organisms evolved with no direction or foresight, but not if they were intelligently designed.

o Genetic sub-optimality is explained by evolution, e.g. why one single-celled organism has 45 times as much genetic information as almost identical species, and 3 times more DNA than humans. There would be no reason for a designer to make it this way.

o Molecular sequences of ubiquitous genes (genes found in virtually all living organisms) have high functional redundancy. This means that where a gene performs the same function in all known species, it always has the same or closely similar sequence in every species, despite the fact that a very large number of other possible sequences would be functionally equivalent. There is no particular reason for this unless all species are related by common descent.

o Evolution predicts that evolutionary change in the fossil record should be broadly consistent with the rate of mutations observed in species today, and this is what we find. For example, the evolutionary divergence of chimpanzees and humans from a common ancestor of around 6 million years ago gives an estimate of 2 x 10^-8 base substitutions per site per year in those organisms. Observed rates are between 1 and 5 x 10^-8 per year, a very good match with the prediction of evolutionary theory.

o Observed rates of mutation easily account for the observed differences between species as diverse as mice, chimpanzees and humans in the time frames indicated by the fossil record - In other words, consistent with evolution.

Every single one of these different and independent forms of evidence for evolution is supported by dozens, hundreds or thousands of individual observations. They all make sense according to evolutionary theory. None of them make any particular sense if you suppose that living organisms are *not* related by common descent. Moreover, unlike religious beliefs such as 'intelligent design' they are all falsifiable, and are therefore valid forms of scientific evidence.

Finally, there is the philosophical argument: It is utterly inconceivable that the complexity and organisation inherent in living organisms could just exist from nothing, and this is the fatal flaw of any concept of a designer: If you argue that life requires a designer, then the designer would have to already exist, with the complexity and intelligence necessary to design living organisms... but then you have contradicted your argument by asserting that complexity does not in fact need a designer – You’re saying it *can* just exist without a designer. Any argument which posits an inevident designer only raises a bigger question than it answers, and ends up with the logical fallacies of either infinite regression or disproving its own premise.

The only alternative, then, is that complexity and organisation arise from simplicity and chaos by the operation of unthinking, undirected natural processes. In the case of living organisms, this means evolution.