evolution??

Question

I m learning about evolution (not at school so dont tell me 2 do my own homework!!)and i was wondering about what kind of evolution is it (like macroo macro...ect.)when your talking about how we got here and became humanm and how the EARTH was made???

Answer 1

To start with, I'll give you one hint: anyone who uses the terms macro- or micro-evolution is probably not a scientist and very likely to be a religious nut with an axe to grind. I know this from experience.

Their are two facts in biological evolution:

(1) Offspring are similar to, but not exactly like their parents
(2) Not all offspring survive long enough to produce their own offspring

Evolutionary theory (which has mountains of evidence from many fields to support it) states that the diversity of life we see today (including human life) is the consequence of those two facts.

How the earth came to be is more of an astrophysics question. As with the evolution of life, I could give you a very long answer. The short answer is that the solar system condensed (due to gravitational attraction) into a disk-like cloud. The stuff in the cloud collided over time and big parts stuck together to form the planets we see today. Occasionally, big pieces collide and shatter and produce ring structures. Mostly, though, the trend is towards consolidation.

Carl Sagan has a good book (which I can't remember the title of) that outlines history from the furthest back we can understand (shortly after the big bang) until the present. It's a little out of date, but still an excellent introduction for laypeople to the scientific view of the history of the universe.

Answer 2

In terms of how the earth came about (it wasn't made), you'll need to look into the field of cosmology.

When you're talking about how life has changed over time and how human beings evolved from common ancestors with other animals, then you just call it evolution. Micro- and macro- are false distinctions made by creationists who realize that evolution is a fact, but don't want to admit that it explains the vast tapestry of life.

The Evolution program mentioned above is an excellent resource, as is Carl Zimmer's Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea, and darn near anything by Richard Dawkins (though, he does tend to get a bit technical, so you might want to build a solid base of knowledge).

Answer 3

Wow! That's a big question.

Really, the word "evolution" is used two different ways. The "evolution" of a physical system, like the stars and the Earth, means how the various parts moved around and bumped into each other and combined by chemistry and atomic reactions.

The "evolution" of humans means how fish changed over many generations to become amphibians, then reptiles, then mammals. Then the some of the mammals evolved into primates, and some of the mammals evolved into humans.

So the same word is used to mean two different things.

Answer 4

Macroevolution is when there are supposed to be big changes beyond the species level. This kind of evolution is controversial because it has never been observed to happen and people who believe in it are trusting in circumstansial evidence not direct sicentific observation. Microevolution is when there are smaller changes at the species level or less. Microevolution is scientifically observable as when different dogs breed and produce dogs with different characteristics such as color or size or short or long hair.

As far as how people got here, i would have to say that God made the world and people at one time. Both the world and humans and everything else in nature are very compilcated in makeup and contain organised systems that often work together which points to a higher intelligence that had to make them. People who reject that the world, humans and what is in nature were created often believe that all these highly functioning categories came to be by random chance against billions of odds and without any real observable science. They guess that certain chemicals came into existance and then combined in the right combinations for matter to form and then living things to the point where ape-like creatures produced apes and also man. All of this is suppoised to be "scientific" but it is really just a faith based system, believing without seeing, with alot of guessing and a little bit of circumstantial evidence. Good job on trying to want to find out for yourself what interests you.

Answer 5

How the earth was made is nothing to do with evolution. Evolution is about how life changes over time to adapt to its surroundings.

Answer 6

evolution is how human and plants and stuff evolve
the earth has periods of life, but its not the "earth" that evolves, its the organisms on it!

Answer 7

Here are two web pages with videos you can download and they will tell you EVERYTHING you need to know about evolution.
http://www.bible.ca/tracks/videos-quotes.htm
http://www.drdino.com/downloads.php

Answer 8

PBS did a special on it... interesting!