Why can't I see the Theory of Evolution first hand?

Question

If the Theory of Evolution is true, why haven’t we seen a species start changing into a completely different species (not just a change within species, like a different breed of dog)? And shouldn’t humans be evolving into something more? I could sure use another pair of hands!

Answer 1

I'll answer the easiest question first: Why aren't humans evolving into something more?

Humans have not faced an environmental stimuli strong enough to force the need for change. Our genetic make-up provides us the ultimate fitness (ability to produce viable off-spring) for the environment we currently live in.

Now why don't you see species changing into new species? Well in fact we are, the most visible example are infections bacteria such as Tubercle bacillus (Tuberculosis) which have changed genetically so drastically that they are now immune to our antibiotics.

There is also a knew body of research that disputes the idea of speciation through mutation (Darwinian Evolution) and proposes an idea of Symbiogenesis.

The work of Lynn Margulis shows that bacteria living in a symbiotic relationship with a higher organism can eventually be 'absorbed' into that organism to become a part of its cellular make-up or even add fuctionality to an organ. The sybiogensis that takes places then leads to the formation of a new organism

Answer 2

> Why can't I see the Theory of Evolution first hand?
You can. Feed some mutagenic chemicals to some fruit flies. When their offspring are born, some of the offspring will be different from the parents. Some of the differences will breed true. Congratulations, you've just seen microevolution through point mutation. Now throw away all the fruit flies you're not interested in, and keep just the ones you are interested in. Congratulations, you've just observed selection.

> why haven’t we seen a species start changing into a completely different species
We have.
A mini-dachshund isn't a wolf, but is descended from wolves.
Corn isn't teosinte.
True-breeding triticale isn't, um, its other grain ancestors.

> shouldn’t humans be evolving into something more
Humans are evolving. These days, breeding barriers are largely social. Don't expect another pair of hands -- evolution occurs at the level of the population, not the individual. If you think the human species should have that, get all your friends to mate with and have lots of children by someone who already appears to have a supernumary set of limbs.

Answer 3

It takes a period of time for things to evolve... in addition, organisms evolve b/c of environmental factors, so that they can survive. ie: isolated organisms may become larger or smaller over time.

For example Homo floresiensis may have been a species of H. eructus that became isolated by water on the island of Flores (near Java). Remains of other organisms have also been found on the island. Homo florensiensis is a dwarf species, whereas rats/ rabbits were larger than "normal" and elephant type species were also dwarf. This occurred over several years so that each species would survive.

Evolution is something that you must review and look back on to see the facts. It's obvious we do change over generations, simply compare the height of humans today vs those in 1800s-- we're taller. That's probably not for survival reasons, but it occurred b/c of agricultural and environmental changes.

Answer 4

because in the theory of evolution, a species makes tiny adaptations over multiple generations. you are only one generation, so you will not be around long enough to witness change. if you do a little research, you can find that in the last several hundred years there are a number of trackable changes (i.e. in general humans are taller now)

to put into perspective, it took more than 4 Billion years to get to the amount of diversity we currently see on the earth (of course with changes thoughout time.) I'd imagin you're maybe 13-16 years old vs 4,500,000,000 years. simply will not have enough time on the planet to see the changes, barring some catastrophic event and a speciec that adapts and multiplies extremely fast.

Answer 5

You can see it. Just look at bacterial resistance to antibiotics, locust resistance to insecticide and rats becoming resistant to poisons. That is evolution in action.
Evolution is not one species changing into another, it is a species adapting over several generations in response to an environmental stress. Those with a genetic adaptation which helps them survive will have more offspring than those without the adaptation. It is easier to see in short-lived species with high reproduction rates, like insects and bacteria than it is with humans and other large mammals.

Answer 6

You can see evolution first hand! Bacteria evolve immunity to antibiotics. That's why your doctor prescribes different antibiotics when you have an ear infection and also why your doctor advises you to use all of the medicine even after the symptoms go away.

That's evolution in action.

Humans are evolving! For example, and there are lots of examples, our average brain size, even in proportion to the size of our bodies, is larger now than it was 5000 years ago so our brains are getting larger.

The problem is that you expect things to happen over night. They don't. I could ask you, how come we don't see more than one Grand Canyon?

Answer 7

Actually, you can see evolution first hand. For instance, the peppered moth in england.
The evolution of the peppered moth over the last two hundred years has been studied in detail. Originally, the vast majority of peppered moths had light coloration, which effectively camouflaged them against the light-colored trees and lichens which they rested upon. However, due to widespread pollution during the Industrial Revolution in England, many of the lichens died out, and the trees which peppered moths rested on became blackened by soot, causing most of the light-colored moths, or typica, to die off due to predation. At the same time, the dark-colored, or melanic, moths, carbonaria, flourished because of their ability to hide on the darkened trees.[1]


Other changes take thousands of years and depend on chance mutations, so they are harder to see.
With modern medicine and society, people can pass down genes that usually wouldn't be passed down. For instance, thanks to medicines, people now live through diseases...but 200 years ago they would have died and not been able to pass down a particular gene. Its hard to say if we are evolving...

Answer 8

There have been numerous instances of speciation observed by science. Look up 'speciation' on wikipedia for a start.

Secondly, can you outline a pathway of small incremental steps, each favoured by natural selection, whereby another set of hands could evolve? No. You can't. There is your answer.

Answer 9

People are being born without wisdom teeth and appendixes. Evolution is happening everywhere all the time. We probably will not see something substantial or some major dramatic change in our lifetime, but it is happening.

Answer 10

are you serious,......... evolution is a process of very slow change.

It took a pre historic finned aquatic Coelacanth fish,...... 5 million years before evolving into (1st.) a Acanthostega fish, and then ( 2nd.) a semi aquatic / semi land Ichtyostega with tetrapod limbs,
............................................. and also,.....................................

it took a pre historic finned aquatic Eusthenopteron fish,....... 10 million years to evolve into (1st.) a Panderichthys fish, and then (2nd.) a semi aquatic / semi land Tiktaalk also with tetrapod limbs.

If you want more info on species evolution,........ research human evolution,........ and you'll see how man has evolved from a family of monkeys ( prosimians : 8 familys),........ and anthropoids (catarrrhini : 9 familys).
Modern man is from the hominidae / anthropoid / catarrhini family.
Check out primate evolution, if you want an update on your ancestors.......