What is the best proof for evolution out there?

Question

Do you think it takes as much faith to believe in evolution as it would to believe in any religion?
give me sites and references please so that I can study the stuff myself
opinions are like assholes, they run rampant on this site
I'm looking for facts. I've read a lot of stuff myself but I just like to ask this question every now and then to see if I can get something new or read something I haven't before.
If you had one hour before you died what information would you tell me to try to convince me. Bury me with the best stuff you can. I want it all cause I haven't looked into a lot of this stuff in a while and I'm trying to get up to speed here.

Answer 1

First thing Sean (musesshun) ... PLEASE stop saying "proof" ... please say "evidence." You "prove" things in math, not science.

This is not a minor nitpicky point. This is the *BASICS* of how scientists think. Nothing is *EVER* proved ... that's why we use words like "theory" ... not because we're unsure of something, but because scientists admit, from step one, that we can NEVER, EVER know something for sure. That's why we still talk about (for example) the atomic theory of matter. It is never considered "proved" that matter is made up of atoms and molecules ... but that is a model, a theory, that just explains a LOT of things very nicely ... and that is all evolution is, a model, a theory that explains a LOT of things very nicely.

Instead we talk about "evidence" which stresses the *ACCUMULATION* of many different facts. No single one of these facts, by itself, "proves" evolution. But all of them taken together, build one heck of a strong case for it.

> "Bury me with the best stuff you can. "

OK ... this is my breakdown of the 10 main categories of *EVIDENCE* for evolution:

1. Evolution reproduced in the lab or documented in nature:

a. Two strains of fruit flies lost the ability to interbreed and produce fertile offspring in the lab over a 4-year span ... i.e. they became two new species. (Easily repeated experiment.)

b. A new plant species (a type of firewood), created by a doubling of the chromosome count from the original stock (Mosquin, 1967).

c. Multiple species of the house mouse unique to the Faeroe Islands occurred within 250 years of introduction of a foundation species on the island.

d. Formation of 5 new species of cichlid fishes that have formed in a single lake within 4,000 years of introduction of a parent species.

2. Fossil evidence - (So much to list). The way fossils appear in the layers of rock always corresponds to relative development ... more primitive creatures in lower (older) layers. Absolute dating of fossils using radiometry. Constant discovery of new transitional forms. E.g. reptile-birds, reptile-mammals, legged whales, legged sea cows.

3. Genetic evidence - E.g. the fact that humans have a huge number of genes (as much as 96%) in common with other great apes ... and (as much as 50%) with wheat plants. The pattern of genetic evidence follows the tell-tale patterns of ancestral relationships (more genes in common between recently related species, and fading the further back in time).

4. Molecular evidence - These are commonalities in DNA ... which is separate from genetic commonalities ... much of our DNA does not code for genes at all. But random mutations (basically 'typos') enter into DNA at a known rate over the centuries. This is called the 'molecular clock' and again gives excellent evidence of when humans diverged from other apes (about 6 million years ago, according to this molecular clock), and this corresponds perfectly with when these fossils first appear in the fossil record (using radiometric dating).

5. Evidence from proteins - Proteins - E.g., things like blood proteins (the things that give us our A, B, O blood typing and the Rh factor (the plus/minus thing) which incidentally stands for 'rhesus monkey'); the exact structure of the insulin molecule; and my favorite, the proteins responsible for color vision. The specific proteins found in human color vision are exactly the same as those found in Old World primates (the great apes and the monkeys found in Africa and Asia). These proteins are absent in New World primates (the Central and South American monkeys), and from all other mammals. In fact among the New World primates, only the howler monkey has color vision ... but these use slightly *different* proteins, coded on different locations and chromosomes, than humans and the OW primates. This is yet more evidence of a closer link between humans and the OW primates.

6. Vestigial and atavistic organs - E.g. Leg and pelvic bones in whales, dolphins, and some snakes; unused eyes in blind cave fish, unused wings in flightless birds and insects; flowers in non-fertilizing plants (like dandelions); in humans, wisdom teeth, tailbones, appendix, the plantaris muscle in the calf (useless in humans, used for grasping with the feet in primates).

7. Embryology - E.g. Legs on dolphin embryos; tails and gill folds on human embryos; snake embryos with legs; marsupial eggshell and carnuncle.

8. Biogeography - The current and past distribution of species on the planet. E.g. almost all marsupials and almost no placental mammals are native to Australia ... the result of speciation in a geographically isolated area.

9. Homology - E.g. the same bones in the same relative positions in primate hands, bat wings, bird wings, mammals, whale and penguin flippers, pterosaur wings, horse legs, the forelimbs of moles, and webbed amphibian legs.

10. Bacteriology, virology, immunology, pest-control - I.e. the way that bacteria evolve in response to antibiotics (we can compare strains of tuberculosis today, with samples of older epidemics and can see the specific structures), or viruses (like HIV) respond to antivirals, or insects evolving in response to pesticides.

There is actually a *LOT* more than I am including here ... this is just my outline. For more, see the following sources.

Answer 2

somewhat than provide you one thousand examples from a hundred diverse fields of technology, i'm going to easily provide you my very own usual occasion. It definitively proves human/chimp basic ancestry (btw in case you have a rebuttal to this i might like to pay attention it). So in accordance to evolution, people and chimps shared a basic ancestor approximately 6 million years in the past. So if it relatively is real there might desire to be similarities in our DNA and there are, yet there is one significant distinction. they have 24 pairs of chromosomes, we've 23. now you won't be able to easily lose a chromosome, the embryo may well be non-achievable. Deletion of an complete chromosome is deadly. So there are 2 opportunities: a million. A chromosome fusion got here approximately interior the human lineage AFTER the chop up from the hassle-free ancestor, leaving us with one much less pair, or 2. evolution is fake. So if we do have a fused chromosome we would desire to consistently have the skill to locate it. Chromosomes have markers on the tip talked approximately as teleomeres, yet as quickly as we've a fused chromosome we would desire to consistently have one chromosome with inactive teleomeres interior the midsection the place they do no longer belong. If we don't locate it, evolution isn't real. seems this is human chromosome #2. this is available to pinpoint the real fusion website to interior of a dozen base pairs (out of three billion). Human chromosome #2 resulted interior the head to head fusion of two chromosomes that proceed to be separate in different primates, and that they correspond directly to chimp chromosomes #12 and #12. the rationalization for that's because of the fact they're arranged by length, #a million being the biggest. so as that's it, definitive DNA evidence that we proportion a basic ancestry with chimpanzees. Evolution is actuality.

Answer 3

Molecular biology and the understanding of how Deoxyribonucleic Acid ("DNA") works.

I will provide you with a link to the Dolan DNA Learning Center at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory - the #1 most influential laboratory in the world for science research for the past ten years, and some others.

Answer 4

There is no "proof" of evolution, just lots of evidence. The evidence is very compeling.

Many creationists use this fact to claim that evolution has been "disproved". This is nonsense. I do not "believe" in evolution. I have seen a lot of the evidence, and understand it. I accept, based on the evidence, that the evolutionary model proposed by Darwin, and refined by many who came afterward, is much more probable than the Biblical story of creation.

Belief has no place in science.

I also accept that the currently accepted model of evolution is more probable than most of the other creation myths as well.

Answer 5

Your pair of questions implies the evolution and creation are simple opposites. They are not. There is adequate scientific evidence for the basic evolutionary process. It isn't until you get down to the origins of life, the DNA process, and the material universe, that science stops having answers and creation is a viable explanation. There is no real scientific theory for the origin of the DNA process, just the conjecture that it 'just happened'. That's grasping at straws.

Answer 6

Neither faith or belief is needed to support the overwhelming evidence for evolution by natural selection. Opinions are for social science and I think it may be your attitude, or education that needs adjusting. This site has all the facts at hand, but somehow I do not think you are capable of appreciating them.

http://www.talkorigins.org

Answer 7

the best answer is politicians