Evolution...?

Question

Does anyone have ANY proof that can prove evolution. No peppered moths, or chemical resistant bacteria. Cause that is natural selection. And the study at the University of Michigan doesn't count because that is intelegent design not accidental progession of computers.

Answer 1

Vestigial structures. For example a whale has a pelvis which is used for legs but it has no legs whatsoever. This shows they used to have legs but gradually evolved out of them.

Also ever hear of Darwins Theory of Natural Selection? That can be the birds on galapagos islands are very similar to that of the mainland. They just evolved into ecological races. This can be proven through looking at amino acids and nucleotides showing similarities.

Im such a nerd :P

Answer 2

Evolution IS natural selection, and natural selection happens based on fitness. Fitness is the relative ability of an organism to survive and reproduce, and that ability comes from the fact that all organisms, even within a species, are different. Also, evolution happens on the level of the population, NOT the individual.

I am not sure what the UofMichigan study was about, but we have recently observed the evolution of the Apple Maggot Fly into two distinct species. I don't have a website, just Google it, and you should be able to get some info.

Answer 3

every morning i get up and get into my car to make the long drive to work. even though i know about 250,000 people world wide will die in a car wreck every year, i still do it. you know why because the odds against it happening to me are within the range I'm willing to risk, i make my decision based on the odds. nothing in this universe is ultimately 100% provable, not even numbers have a basis that we can point to and say, this is why they work, in essence even maths are a theory, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theorem). can you prove that this whole universe is real, that it is not some matrix like simulation. no you can't, but the odds seem stack against it and if we use Occam's razor then, then the answer is this is the real universe. the same goes for evolution. it has the fossil record that shows the consistantly changing flora and fauna neatly stacked in geological strata that can be dated. there is DNA, which shows how all life on earth is related. darwin thought we were descended from apes, and years later DNA showed that relationship. yes evolution is a theory because of the nature of the subject, life over billions of years, evidence is hard to come by,but there is enough evidence to validate evolution as the most probable method to explain life on this world. much better odds than me not getting killed in a wreck. as far as i know no one has come up with the slightest bit of evidence to suggest that evolution is not viable. i know that creationists are not tackling it head on, but are looking at the gaps, the unresearched dark corners and saying, 'look you can't explain this'. someone explains it and they move on to the next gap. i believe that evolution is the correct explanation, not because it is complete, it probably never will be, but because it logically explains the phenomena of life and it's the only thing that does that. creationism is basically magic, it has no evidence and therfore it is not a valid explanation.

Answer 4

Of course I can't prove evolution to you. You demonstrate as much in the question:

"No peppered moths, or chemical resistant bacteria. Cause that is natural selection"

You will simply create a new "not-evolution" re-definition of anything that is shown to you.

Answer 5

Natural selection IS the primary force behind evolution. It's one of the reasons why later generations are different from earlier ones (the other is introduction of new genetic material from organisms moved in from a different ecosystem), given that offspring inherit genetic characteristics from their parents. This inheritance is vital to natural selection, so proving natural selection over generations does prove evolution.

Answer 6

Evolution is not "provable" because we can't observe it occurring on the timescales that it occurs on. Our lives are too short. Evolution is accepted because of the principle of parsimony: it explains what we see best because it makes the fewest assumptions -- it postulates the fewest *additional* unprovable mechanisms. Divine creation would be, in a scientific sense, yet another thing in need of explanation (where did god come from and how did he create the world?) -- science could never explain anything if it accepted that kind of conclusion. So, the principle of parsimony is used by scientists.

Answer 7

Natural selection is the mechanism of evolution. Those examples are illustrative of natural selection which has lead to microevolution. So those, while not ironclad proof of MACROevolution, are nevertheless experimental results which support MICROevolution. Whether you want to make the leap to support the divergence of species through this mechanism is up to you or, most likely, your religion.

Answer 8

Look at the consistency of genetic material in species.
Not only is DNA universal (with the exception of some virus species), but the percent of conserved sequences between similar species is very high.

Answer 9

At one time we had woolly mammoths and saber toothed tigers and they have evolved into elephants and tigers due to the changing climate.

Evolve: To undergo biological evolution, as in the development of new species or new traits within a species.

Answer 10

The proof is the fossil record. I once saw a scientist at a Congressional hearing hold up a dinosaur bone and state: This is not fiction!